Documenting 10 Years of Russian War Crimes

War crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine have been regularly investigated by Ukrainian prosecutors and international institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) from the very beginning of war. In the near future, the Council of Europe will also establish an international tribunal tasked with examining these cases.

Investigating Russian crimes also involves collecting testimonies and working in areas where there were occupying forces.

Kyiv Post spoke with Monika Andruszewska, who, as part of her work for Poland’s Raphael Lemkin Center for Documenting Russian Crimes in Ukraine, documents Russian crimes committed against civilians.

Michał Kujawski: What brought you to Ukraine?

Monika Andruszewska: In 2014, when Euromaidan started, I witnessed this incredible movement for independence and young people my age. I decided to skip my university exams and go to Kyiv. History was happening there, and I wanted to be part of it. I was 21 years old and saw my first death. The fact that people were being killed in the middle of Europe influenced my future life decisions. I then observed the events in Donbas. Everyone I met on Maidan headed to eastern Ukraine. Most of them were students who suddenly became soldiers. I helped them organize necessary items like uniforms and first aid kits. I was already receiving reports that Russia was killing people in Crimea and Donbas. For example, one of the first crimes was the murder of 16-year-old Stepan Chubenko, who was abducted and shot near Donetsk by Russian separatists. More people were beaten and killed there. It was shocking to me – in the 21st century, Russia has been killing children, and no one is reacting. People have been abducted and killed for their beliefs and attitudes. The world’s lack of response gave me a deep sense of injustice.

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What exactly were you doing there?

I was organizing assistance and raising awareness about what was happening on social media. I ended up in the Donbas battalion, formed by people from eastern Ukraine. They were fighting for their country, for their land. There were no Bandera supporters there, contrary to what Russian propaganda claimed. Most of the battalion members lost their lives, went missing, or were captured. I knew them. It was shocking. I felt that I had to stay there.

In one form or another, armed actions continued there until February 2022. Then, with the Russian aggression, they spread throughout the entire country.

That’s right. It irritates me when I read in the Western media that two years of war have passed. If the war has lasted two years, then where were my friends dying ten years ago? People forget that this has been going on for over 10 years. Only the scale has changed. Everything Russia did in 2014 in Crimea and Donbas, it is now doing in other parts of the country. The same methods, but on a larger scale. Initially, Russia treated this as an experiment. They tested how much they could get away with and concluded that they could get away with anything. We are witnessing rapes, kidnappings, and other crimes.

And this is what you started to get involved in.

I am documenting and publicizing Russian crimes against the civilian population. Three days after Russia launched its full-scale aggression against Ukraine, the Rafal Lemkin Center for Documenting Russian Crimes was opened in Poland, under the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage at the Pilecki Institute. I received an offer to organize a team that would collect testimonies from Ukrainians who experienced Russian repression or were witnesses to crimes. I agreed, feeling how important this task is, as it would give a voice to the victims and record their suffering. This is an initiative of the Polish state; I did not want to refuse. It is the largest non-Ukrainian state institution dealing with this issue.

To be more specific, what kind of work are you doing?

We document all the crimes committed by Russia. We gather information about the events that have occurred since February 24, 2022, but also earlier. Our main task is to collect information about what has been happening in areas occupied by Russia. Typically, these are small frontline towns and villages liberated by Ukraine. Visiting such places makes more sense than working in large cities like Kharkiv. Documenting Russian crimes there is easier due to the presence of services and prosecutors, which are absent in small villages. We focus on local tragedies, the leveling of villages to the ground. Local elites, authorities, cultural institution workers, and teachers are locked in basements and tortured. Some manage to escape, while others have been murdered. There are also those who live under occupation in great fear of arrest and torture. This is what genocide looks like.

How do you manage to reach these people?

We contact the local authorities of the towns that have been occupied. Representatives of the local administration often temporarily reside in larger cities like Kharkiv or Zaporizhzhia. The people we talk to provide us with contacts for internally displaced Ukrainian refugees who have experienced Russian occupation. The second method is to travel to towns that have been liberated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Usually, our first steps are directed towards the cultural center and the local administration. This is because these are also the places that Russian soldiers first approach when they occupy a town. The Russians have lists of proscribed individuals, based on which they arrest people.

PULL QUOTE: Russia treated this as an experiment. They tested how much they could get away with and concluded that they could get away with anything.

The Lemkin Center has published a report detailing Russian crimes, which was based on your work. What scale are we talking about?

My group of 4 collected about 700 testimonies.

What do they say?

The Russians are doing everything that can be seen in the worst nightmares. Not once have we encountered a situation where, upon arriving in a locality, the local residents told us that the Russians had done nothing wrong. The repressions primarily affect the local elite, military families, and activists. We usually start by talking to one person, such as the school principal. He points us to others, for example, “the father of one of the students was a veteran, the Russians took him.” Returning to your question – looting and sexual violence are everyday occurrences, literally everywhere. Since 2014, there have been a dozen or so torture chambers; today, we are talking about hundreds.

Are you referring to cases like Bucha, Irpin, or Izyum?

Those are the best-known, symbolic cases. There are dozens of places like Bucha and Irpin. Many of them we still don’t know about because they are under occupation. This also pertains to the scale of the phenomenon – the mere fact that these localities are still occupied prevents us from knowing the full extent of the crimes. Perhaps we will never learn about them.

Since 2014, the Russians have abducted many Ukrainians into the depths of Russia. This concerns both the widely publicized issue of child abduction and the residents of Crimea. Which group are we talking about?

These are hostages of Russia. Besides the military, we have two categories of prisoners. The first category is the Kremlin’s hostages, which are political prisoners held in Crimea and within the Russian Federation, amounting to about 200 people. Mainly, these are Crimean Tatars. Recently, for example, there was the 10th anniversary of the imprisonment of Valentyn Vygivsky, who is the longest-held Ukrainian political prisoner in Russia. He has been in captivity since September 2014. His crime was attending an air show in the occupied Crimean Peninsula. He was accused of spying for Russian aviation and imprisoned in a penal colony, which is a modern equivalent of a Soviet labor camp. The second category consists of people from Donbas, from the occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions. They receive sentences of several years for various absurd charges. This includes treason against their homeland, namely the Donetsk People’s Republic, although they are Ukrainian patriots. A third group can also be defined. These are people abducted by the Russians after 2022. This could amount to around 14,000 people, including those missing, whose fate is uncertain.

From time to time, there are exchanges of POWs, but what about civilians? This is not discussed very often. Is there a possibility of facilitating their return to Ukraine?

This is where the difficulties begin. Civilians are being held both in Russia and in occupied territories. Russia aims to exchange civilians for war criminals captured by Ukrainians. We observed this during the recent anniversary of the downing of the Malaysian MH17 flight by Russia. For Volodymyr Tsemakh, who was one of those responsible for this crime, Oleg Sentsov and other political prisoners were exchanged. Russia exchanges political prisoners for its own criminals.

A similar exchange took place on Aug. 1, 2024, between the West and Russia and Belarus, where journalists and activists were exchanged for Russian paid assassins...

That’s how it looks. Let’s note that Russians in Ukraine are not being persecuted. They live peacefully. Unfortunately, Ukraine has no one to propose for exchange for its civilians. If Ukraine exchanges Kadyrovites or Wagner members for civilians, it will lead to a situation where Russia will capture and imprison absolutely everyone who comes under its control. This is extortion.

You are trying to highlight the fate of civilian prisoners of war and support their families’ efforts for their release.

I am doing what I can. Through the joint efforts of well-meaning individuals and the Ukrainian state, we recently managed to bring back home, among others, Olena Piech, a museum worker from Horlivka near Donetsk. As a person with patriotic views, she left her home in 2014 due to real threats and moved to Odesa. Unfortunately, her mother suffered a stroke, and Olena was forced to visit her in the occupied territories. During one of her visits, she was arrested and tortured. Here, there is a symbolic element referring to Russian propaganda. Olena was wearing a necklace with a Star of David around her neck. Her Russian tormentors publicly cut it off. Throughout her captivity, she was persecuted by the Russians because of her Jewish heritage. Russia continuously calls Ukrainians Nazis, while it is actually using methods known from history. Olena Piech was imprisoned since August 2018. Her release was aided by media attention, which proves that it is truly worth highlighting these issues. In Poland, organizations such as ICOM National Committee Poland, Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich, the European Union, and the Vatican were involved in her release. An innocent Ukrainian of Jewish descent was sentenced by the occupying authorities to several years for treason! This is absurd. What was her homeland if not Ukraine?

This is an individual story with a happy ending. Many more people are waiting for it.

Monika Andruszewska: However, there is still Bohdan Kovalchuk in Russian captivity, who was arrested in occupied Donetsk in August 2016 at the age of just 17, meaning he was still a minor. He was accused of “terrorism” and cooperating with Ukrainian services. The separatists offered him “clemency” in exchange for agreeing to remain in the occupied territories, but the boy responded that he wanted to live in a free Ukraine and would not accept any clemency, as that would be a betrayal of his homeland. This obviously shows how absurd these charges were – if Bohdan were actually a dangerous terrorist, why would the occupying authorities in Donetsk want to keep him on their territory? Perhaps precisely because they know full well that his detention and torture were simply a capture of a child and a violation of all international laws, compromising both Russia and its Donetsk puppets? This boy has been imprisoned in correctional colonies for eight years. Can you imagine that? His entire adult life in captivity. He can only regain his freedom through a prisoner exchange, and to bring that closer, his story needs publicity.

What are your further plans?

I will continue our work. There is still much to be done. Russia continues to commit war crimes, and many areas are still under occupation. All of this requires thorough documentation. The scale is enormous, and we are racing against time. With each day of the Russian invasion, more victims and witnesses of Russian crimes are lost. We must document this.