““While many EU and US governments have expressed commitment to justice for the crimes of Russian forces, prosecution has been slow to move forward””, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“While many EU and US governments have expressed their commitment to justice for serious crimes by Russian forces, progress in prosecutions has been slow,” the report said.
Thus, from January to December, human rights defenders recorded at least 459 attacks on medical infrastructure and personnel, during which 119 medical workers and 50 patients were injured.
The authors of the report, in particular, mention the large-scale air attacks on the Ukrainian energy system in the first half of last year. From March to August, Russia carried out 101 such strikes in 17 regions, which “significantly reduced the power supply to civilians.”
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Separate sections of the report are devoted to the policy of the occupying Russian authorities in the captured regions of mainland Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula. According to HRW, the occupiers continue to impose Russian legislation, including by appointing “federal judges”, which is a violation of international humanitarian law. Also, Russia continues to pressure residents of the occupied regions to obtain Russian passports, resorting to harassment, intimidation, arbitrary detention and restrictions on access to social services.
“The Russian authorities continued to suppress the Ukrainian language and the curriculum and impose the Russian curriculum and the Russian language as the language of instruction in schools in the occupied territories of Ukraine,” the text says.
The organization also mentions the detention and persecution of Ukrainian journalists, volunteers, public and religious leaders who refuse to cooperate with the occupation authorities. In addition, the forced recruitment of local people into the Russian army, which is a war crime, continues.
In Crimea, human rights activists state, the Russian occupation authorities continued to persecute active members of the Crimean Tatar community, journalists and other critics of Russia’s actions on the peninsula. According to HRW, from December 2023 to September 2024, courts in Crimea convicted 254 people for “discrediting the armed forces of Russia.”
The report mentions the denial of proper medical care to Crimean prisoners. For example, the imprisoned activist Iryna Danylovich “remained in custody in a colony in the south of Russia without access to proper medical care.” And the political prisoner Oleksandr Syzikov was imprisoned, despite his disability, which gives him legal protection.
The other day, the Radio Liberty project “News of the Azov region” reported on the cases of dismissals of Ukrainian teachers in the schools of the occupied Henichesk in the Kherson region. The other day, a local Telegram channel published a message from a teacher who was fired, and people from Dagestan were appointed in her place. Ukrainian officials also confirm the cases when workers from Russian regions come to the captured settlements of Ukraine.