The allegations were swiftly denied by the Ukrainian government, but the charges — along with earlier allegations of indiscriminate attacks on civilians in the Donbas — may harm to country’s image in the West.
But experts say the criticism will not change Ukraine’s war methods since the nation has limited options.
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Cluster bombs, when exploding, eject cluster bomblets over the area equal to a football field. They are designed to kill all the people within their reach and damage vehicles. Cluster bombs also often don’t explode and become dangerous land mines, threatening civilians in populated areas.
Human Rights Watch indicated that its experts documented at least 12 incidents in various areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, where the cluster munition was applied, killing at least six and injuring dozens of people.
Human Rights Watch has found evidence that both sides in Russia’s war against Ukraine are using dangerous cluster bombs, banned under international treaty by many nations, but not in Ukraine or Russia.
Ole Solvang, senior researcher of Human Rights Watch, said that sides of the conflict use basically the same weapons, so it’s often hard to determine from which side the rockets with cluster bombs came.
“But for several attacks in Donetsk in early October we have very strong evidence that it was the Ukrainian armed forces,” he said in the report. Sovlang added that the use of these weapons in populated areas could be considered as “violation of the laws of war and may amount to war crimes.”
In one of these cases on Oct. 2, the cluster bombs killed in Donetsk Laurent DuPasquier, a Swiss national and worker of International Committee of the Red Cross, the report said. After thorough examination of the impact craters and interviewing the eyewitnesses, the experts of Human Rights Watch found it all pointed the direction of the Ukrainian forces located to the southwest of the city.
But Andriy Lysenko, spokesman of National Security and Defense Council, claimed that Human Rights Watch were deceived by separatist insurgents as Ukraine doesn’t use any banned weapon. “For the period of anti-terrorist operation the Ukrainian troops didn’t use any kind of weapons banned by international treaties. This includes use of cluster bombs,” Lysenko told the press briefing on Oct. 21.
Lysenko added that on Oct. 13 the Ukrainian soldiers found in the village of Yevhenivka of Donetsk Oblast four unexploded cluster bombs fired by separatists from Urahan multiple rocket launchers. “Why nobody is paying attention to these facts?” he asked.
Human Rights Watch, however, claimed in their report that they had evidence that separatists used cluster bombs as well. But it added that “violations of the laws of war by one party to the conflict do not justify violations by the other party.”
Ukraine wasn’t one of 114 countries that signed the treaty to ban use of cluster munition. These kinds of weapons are also not by banned for the use by the United States, Russia and Israel. So Human Rights Watch called on Ukraine as well as Russian, another party of the conflict, to abandon use of cluster munitions.
Valery Chaly, deputy head of the Presidential Administration, said he didn’t know about any facts that the Ukrainian forces used cluster bombs and all the reports need to be thoroughly investigated. But the Ukrainian authorities in most cases don’t have access to these areas to hold investigation. “How can we investigate on that is we don’t have closed border?” Chaly emotionally said.
On Oct. 20, Amnesty International, one more prominent human rights watchdog, accused the Ukrainian fighters along with rebels of extra-judicial executions, whose level, however was far below the reports by Russia propaganda.
Four dead bodies were found in mass grave near the town of Makeyevka in Donetsk Oblast. These people were killed in Aug. 16-Sept. 22, when this territory was under control of the Ukrainian forces. One of them was recognized as Mykyta Kolomiytsev, who assisted the troops of self-proclaimed Donets People’s Republic guarding their checkpoint. His relatives claimed he never participated in fights. His mother said that soldiers who arrested him “broke the door, were shooting inside of the house and these soldiers had the emblem of battalion Dnipro 1,” Tetiana Mazur, head of Amnesty International mission in Ukraine told the press conference.
“The Ukrainian authorities should guarantee the law enforcement bodies would be able to investigate illegal arrests, tortures, killings regardless of who committed them,” she added.
When working in the embattled east, the Kyiv Post numerously witnessed cases of misdeeds committed by the Ukrainian fighters, including intimidation, the beating of civilians and the hijacking of their cars.
The Kyiv Post also saw parts of shells near the school and houses in Donetsk on July 21 that were fired to the city from territory controlled by the Ukrainian army. At least three people were killed as a result of that attack. The representative of Human Rights Watch, who examined the Kyiv Post photos, confirmed these shells were fired by Grad multiple rocket launchers, which the Ukrainian army constantly denied to use in the residential areas.
Vyacheslav Tseluiko, expert of Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, said that while there’s no conventions that ban use of Grad and these weapons are now widely applied by both parties of the eastern war. At the same time the cluster munitions fired by Uragan and Smerch multiple rocket launcher systems are very efficient to combat the insurgents as they cover the bigger territory.
Tseluiko believes that Ukraine’s image could suffer if the report that it uses cluster bombs is proven. The country could promise to minimize the use of cluster bombs but, in reality, still needs to use them because of limited supplies and types of weapons within its arsenal.
“When the victory is at stake they (the Ukrainian forces) could hardly make choice in favor of good image,” he said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at grytsenko@kyivpost.com
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