On the evening of February 26, Russian military forces conducted a drone strike in the Kupiansk district of Kharkiv, targeting a residential area. The State Emergency Service reported that a private home was completely destroyed in the attack.
Rescue teams recovered the body of a deceased man from the rubble, while another individual, a woman, sustained injuries. Local prosecutors indicated that the strike occurred around 9:40 PM, involving two unmanned aerial vehicles aimed at the village of Pidseredne.
The victim has been identified as a 67-year-old man, with his wife suffering injuries during the incident. Authorities have initiated a preliminary investigation into the incident, classifying it as a war crime under Article 438 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code.
Russian military forces have consistently targeted Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure using various types of weaponry, including drones, missiles, and artillery systems. Such attacks have been condemned by both Ukrainian authorities and international organizations, which categorize them as war crimes perpetrated by the Russian Federation.
These strikes are viewed as deliberate attempts to disrupt essential services, including electricity, heating, water supply, and medical assistance, contributing to what some legal experts and human rights advocates characterize as genocidal actions. They cite statements from Russian officials that undermine the existence of Ukrainians as an ethnic group and call for their destruction.
The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, obligates its 149 member states to prevent and punish acts of genocide during both wartime and peacetime. The convention defines genocide as actions intended to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
Indicators of genocide include the killing of group members, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting living conditions calculated to destroy the group, and forcibly transferring children from one group to another.
Despite these accusations, the Russian government denies that its military is intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure or causing civilian casualties, asserting that its operations are aimed at military objectives.
A recent drone strike by Russian forces in the Kharkiv region has resulted in civilian casualties, prompting investigations into potential war crimes. The incident underscores ongoing concerns regarding the targeting of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.