An international group of human rights lawyers has accused Russia of deliberately starving the citizens of Mariupol during its 85-day siege of the Ukrainian city in early 2022.
A 76-page document released Thursday by the human rights group’s Global Rights Compliance’s Famine Mobile Justice Committee detailed the siege, which it described as “hell on earth” for residents of the port city. Starvation War Crime as a Calculated Strategy.
The organization concluded that Russian forces had “systematically attacked the civilian population’s necessities of life”, simultaneously cutting off evacuation routes and preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Ukrainian citizens lost water, electricity and gas and were forced to drink from water, radiators and melting snow.
The findings did not surprise Nikolai Osichenko, who described living during the siege as a “Stone Age” experience.
“The Russians bombed the substation that supplied electricity to Mariupol on March 2, and we were without electricity, and at the same time, we were without water supply and heat,” he tells CNN, and the city began to evacuate. Without electricity, the food was very spoiled, so food immediately.
“We all realize that flour is the best. If we have water and flour, we can cook anything. But without water, we can’t do anything,” he adds.
The Mariupol resident lived in an apartment with nine other people for two weeks, rationing food and collecting what water they could find. They spent two days melting buckets of ice with their hands, only to get a few inches of dirty water. Osychenko tells CNN that at one point, he drank water from radiators and boiled it 20 times to purify it.
Deliberately causing hunger and deprivation is a war crime under international law. The group is submitting its latest report as part of a comprehensive dossier on Russia’s use of starvation at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
According to the website, the organization is funded by the European Commission, UK and US governments.
CNN reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment but did not receive a response.
Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov, was surrounded and captured by Russian forces at the start of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Local officials estimate around 22,000 people have been killed in the battle for the city, which is located in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region and has been under direct Russian control since May 2022.
Hell on earth
According to local officials, Russian forces carried out some of the worst attacks in Mariupol, including an attack on a maternity hospital and the bombing of a theater where about 1,300 civilians were sheltering.
The report, titled “‘Hope Left Us: ‘Russia’s Siege, Starvation and Capture of Mariupol,'” examines how “peaceful” Mariupol became “hell on earth” in February 2022. It uses research from open source. Analyze more than 1.5 billion square meters of satellite images, photos, videos, official public reports and other digital data collected between May 2022 and February 2024.
Millions of its people were forced to find alternative survival strategies during the Russian siege. These strategies include creating temporary distribution points for food, water and other essentials.
Women walk past a destroyed apartment building in Mariupol in May 2022 (Alexei Alexandrov/AP via CNN Newssource)
However, these supply points, including the Mariupol theater and the Neptune swimming pool complex, became targets for the Russian military.
“Continued attacks against the city of Mariupol forced the supply of essential goods to be largely mobile to reduce bombardment risks, although a significant number of mobile and fixed supply points continued to be bombed, repeatedly putting vulnerable and hungry residents at considerable risk. The means to meet their livelihoods and basic needs” The report concluded.
The report also found several instances where the delivery of vital humanitarian aid was allegedly denied or deliberately blocked by Russian forces, while civilians were unable to evacuate the city.
“Although the command of Russian forces did not cease hostilities to facilitate the rapid and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in need, the delivery of aid was directly impeded by pro-Russian forces operating checkpoints around the evacuation corridors between Mariupol and Zaporizhzia,” it wrote.
85 day attack
Osichenko says he and his family survived the ordeal thanks to careful planning by his wife and daughter-in-law.
“They were in charge of the meal and divided the food very clearly: so much porridge, so much this and so much that. Once I caught them without eating anything, they cooked for us, but we did not eat, because there was nowhere to find food, they knew there was less and less,” he said. remembered.
Yusuf Syed Khan, senior attorney at law firm Global Rights Compliance, tells CNN he has no doubt the Mariupol siege was a war crime.
“They are [o exército russo] They don’t allow international organizations to evacuate civilians… despite repeated attempts by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations to evacuate civilians, he assures, speaking of the first reason he understood. Justify his determination.
“Secondly, they did not allow humanitarian aid. In the 85 days of the attack, humanitarian aid was not allowed to enter Mariupol even once”, he concludes.
Khan continues: “In addition, they hit essential infrastructure. They hit electricity, they hit water. They hit food distribution stations.”
Russian forces had ample opportunities to alleviate civilian suffering, but they failed to do so.
Osichenko says that every day, the situation becomes more and more desperate. “Mothers with young children, many of whom lost milk due to stress and hunger, had no milk powder or food for the children,” he says.
When Russian troops captured the city, they tried to take advantage of the desperate situation.
“When Russia came to town and they started distributing food to people in cellars, giving sweets to children, even though we hated Russia, we went to them and accepted it. We had nothing to eat, our children had nothing to drink. It was horrible,” he recalled. .
Khan says Moscow’s approach to the blockade is part of a broader strategy that Russian and pro-Russian forces have consistently used over the past eight years. Khan pointed to sieges by pro-Russian forces across Syria, including east Aleppo and Ghouta, as examples of tough Russian tactics.
Ukrainian officials and some international officials have previously accused Russia of stealing grain and other goods from the country in its occupied territories. Since the first reports emerged of Russian troops stealing grain in the spring of 2022, accusations that Russia is using food as a weapon of war have been mounting.
The ICC has jurisdiction over war crimes committed in Ukraine. To date, it has issued four Ukraine-related arrest warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin for abducting Ukrainian children.
“Hardcore explorer. Extreme communicator. Professional writer. General music practitioner. Prone to fits of apathy.”