<
https://theconversation.com/an-inside-look-at-the-dangerous-painstaking-work-of-collecting-evidence-of-suspected-war-crimes-in-ukraine-214725>
"In a village in the Chernihiv region of northern Ukraine, activists
documenting evidence of potential war crimes in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
last year interviewed a witness whose relative went missing during the early
days of the war. The relative’s phone had ended up in the hands of the Russian
military, who forgot to deactivate the owner’s Google Photos account.
Russian soldiers then used the phone to take photos of their weapons and
equipment, the belongings of Ukrainian civilians that had likely been stolen,
and Russian military positions in the area. These were then uploaded to the
phone owner’s cloud storage, allowing the Ukrainian war crimes trackers to
access them.
With the assistance of their collaborators and specialised open-source
intelligence tools, the activists managed to identify more than 20 Russian
soldiers – their surnames, positions, ranks, military units and even mobile
phone numbers.
This information was then passed to Ukrainian law enforcement officials for
possible further investigation.
These activists work for the Educational Human Rights House Chernihiv (EHRHC),
a non-governmental human rights organisation. In March 2022, a month after the
Russian invasion, the group became a part of two coalitions with significant
experience documenting suspected war crimes and human rights violations
committed in Ukraine since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Their main task has centred on collecting and documenting evidence of attacks
and other suspected crimes on Ukrainian educational facilities. Their work is
dangerous – even life-threatening – as these activists must visit areas near
the front lines that are exposed to daily shelling and littered with landmines
and missile debris.
The activists have collected more than 3,000 pieces of information related to
potential war crimes for a database and documented 80 cases related
specifically to attacks on educational facilities.
As of this month, nearly 3,800 educational institutions across Ukraine have
been partially destroyed or severely damaged from bombing and shelling, with
another 365 destroyed completely, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of
Education."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
