WASHINGTON (AP) — Two weeks after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, Kremlin-backed rebels attacked a nursing home in the eastern region of Luhansk. Dozens of elderly and disabled patients, many of them bedridden, were inside without water or electricity.
The March 11 attack set off a fire that spread through the facility, suffocating people who were unable to move. A small number of patients and staff escaped and fled into a nearby forest, where they finally received help after walking 5 kilometers.
In a war full of atrocities, the attack on the nursing home near the village of Stara Krasnyanka was notable for its brutality. And the Ukrainian authorities put the blame entirely on the Russian armed forces, accusing them of killing more than 50 vulnerable civilians in a brutal and unprovoked attack.
But a new United Nations report has found that Ukraine’s armed forces bear much, if not as much, the blame for what happened in Stara Krasnyanka, about 580 kilometers (360 miles) southeast of Kiev. A few days before the attack, Ukrainian soldiers took up positions in the nursing home, effectively making the building a target.
At least 22 of the 71 patients survived the attack, but the exact number of deaths remains unknown, according to the UN
The report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights does not conclude that the Ukrainian soldiers or the Moscow-backed separatist fighters committed a war crime. But it said the battle at the Stara Krasnyanka nursing home is symbolic of the human rights agency’s concerns about the possible use of “human shields” to prevent military operations in certain areas.
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This story is part of an ongoing investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS “Frontline” series that includes the interactive experience of War Crimes Watch Ukraine and an upcoming documentary.
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The aftermath of the attack on Stara Krasnyanka’s home also offers a picture of how both Russia and Ukraine are acting quickly to set the narrative for how events unfold on the ground — even if those events are still shrouded in the mists of war. For Ukraine, maintaining the upper hand in the battle for hearts and minds helps ensure the continued flow of billions of dollars in Western military and humanitarian aid.
Russia’s often indiscriminate shelling of apartment buildings, hospitals, schools and theaters is the main cause of the war’s thousands of civilian casualties. Ukraine and its allies, including the United States, have reprimanded Moscow for the dead and injured and called for those responsible to be brought to justice.
But Ukraine must also abide by the international rules of the battlefield. David Crane, a former U.S. Department of Defense official and a veteran of numerous international war crimes investigations, said Ukraine’s armed forces may have violated armed conflict laws by failing to evacuate residents and nursing home staff.
“The main rule is that civilians cannot be intentionally targeted. Period of time. For whatever reason,” Crane said. “The Ukrainians put those people in a situation that was a murder zone. And you cannot do that.”
The Associated Press and the PBS “Frontline” series, based on various sources, have independently documented hundreds of attacks across Ukraine that likely constitute war crimes. The vast majority appear to have been committed by Russia. But a handful, including the destruction of the Stara Krasnyanka nursing home, say Ukrainian fighters are also to blame.
Initial media reports about the Stara Krasnyanka nursing home largely reflect statements by Ukrainian officials more than a week after the fighting ended.
Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk, stated in a March 20 message on his Telegram account that 56 people had been killed “cynically and deliberately” by “Russian occupiers” who “fired at close range from a tank”. The office of Ukraine’s Attorney General, Iryna Venediktova, said in a statement the same day that 56 elderly people died as a result of the “treasonable actions” of Russian forces and their allies. Neither statement said whether Ukrainian soldiers had entered the house before the fighting started.
The Luhansk regional administration, led by Haidai, did not respond to requests for comment. Ukraine’s attorney general’s office told The AP on Friday that the Luhansk division is continuing to investigate Russia’s “arbitrary shelling and forced transfers” from the nursing home. About 50 patients died in the attack, the office said, fewer than reported in March. The prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond to the UN report, but said it is also investigating whether Ukrainian troops were in the house.
Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years in the largely Russian-speaking eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas, which includes the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. They have proclaimed two independent ‘people’s republics’, which were recognized by Russia just before the outbreak of the war.
Viktoria Serdyukova, the human rights commissioner for the separatist government of Luhansk, said in a March 23 statement that Ukrainian troops were responsible for the victims in the nursing home. The residents had been held hostage by Ukrainian “militants” and many of them were “burnt alive” in a fire started by the Ukrainians as they retreated, she said.
The UN report examined violations of international human rights law that have taken place in Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24. The Stara Krasnyanka attack totals just two paragraphs in the 38-page report. While brief, this short section is the most detailed and independent investigation of the incident made public.
The Stara Krasnyanka section is based on eyewitness accounts from employees who survived the attack and information from residents’ relatives, according to a UN official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is still in the process of fully documenting the case, the official said. Among the remaining questions are how many people were killed and who they were.
In early March, according to the UN report, “as active hostilities moved closer to the care home,” management repeatedly requested local authorities to evacuate the residents. But an evacuation was not possible as Ukrainian troops were believed to have mined the area and blocked roads, the report said. The house is built on a hill and is close to a major highway, making its location strategically important.
According to the UN, Ukrainian soldiers entered the nursing home on March 7. † No staff or residents were injured in this initial exchange.
On March 11, 71 residents and 15 staff members remained in the house without access to water or electricity. That morning, Luhansk’s separatist forces, referred to by the UN as “Russian-affiliated armed groups,” attacked with heavy weapons, the report said.
“A fire started and spread across the care home as fighting continued,” the UN said. An unspecified number of patients and staff fled the house and ran into a nearby forest. aid, according to the UN
A correspondent for the state news channel Russia-1 gained access to the war-ravaged house after the battle and posted a video to his Telegram account in April accusing Ukrainian soldiers of using “helpless old people” as human shields.
The correspondent, Nikolai Dolgachev, was accompanied into the building by a man identified in the video as a Luhansk separatist soldier who goes by the call sign “Wolf.” The extensive damage to the building, both inside and out, can be seen in the video. There is a body on the ground. The AP has verified that the location in the video posted by Dolgachev is the care home by comparing it with other videos and photos of the building.
Dolgachev said Ukrainian troops have set up a “machine gun nest” and an anti-tank weapon in the house. In the video, he stops among the rubble in the building to rest his hand on the anti-tank weapon, which he mistakenly referred to as a Tor. The Tor is a Russian surface-to-air missile.
Ian Williams, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, viewed the video and said the weapon is an RK-3 Corsar, a Ukrainian-built portable anti-tank guided missile.
While opposing sides blame each other for the Stara Krasnyanka tragedy, the stark reality is that much of the war in Ukraine is being fought in populated areas, increasing the likelihood of civilian casualties. Those deaths and injuries become almost inevitable when civilians are caught in the line of fire.
“The Russians are the bad guys (in this conflict). That’s pretty obvious,” Crane said. “But everyone is responsible for the law and the laws of armed conflict.”
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Associated Press writer Lynn Berry in Washington and photographer Zoya Shu in Berlin contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: The AP and “Frontline” collect information from organizations including the Center for Information Resilience, Bellingcat, the International Partnership on Human Rights, the Ukrainian Health Center, Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights to support the War Crimes Watch Ukraine to inform. interactive experience.
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Contact the AP research team at [email protected].
