Vladimir Putin’s thugs are using starvation as a weapon of war, with Ukrainians, with civilians in the besieged city of Mariupol even deprived of water and forced to drink from radiators, a shocking new report has claimed.
The document, published today by international human rights foundation Global Rights Compliance, highlights Russian and pro-Russian forces’ use of starvation “as a method of warfare” during an 85-day siege of Mariupol City, in the south-east of Ukraine, between February and May 2022.
The report, entitled The Hope Left Us, is the result of a 12-month investigation and analysis by a team of international lawyers.
It provides evidence of a strategy by Russian sieging forces to deliberately attack and destroy critical civilian infrastructure, obstruct humanitarian evacuation corridors, and prevent the distribution of humanitarian aid to starving Ukrainians confined in the city.
Catriona Murdoch, Global Rights Compliance Vice President and Director of the Starvation and Humanitarian Crisis Division, said: “The present report further captures the broader narrative of the siege through the patterned lens of attacks against objects indispensable to survival (OIS) of the civilian population – electricity, heating, drinking water, food, and medical care.
“It does so because – in the aggregate – the seemingly isolated attacks against OIS, when paired with associated violations and crimes related to the weaponisation of humanitarian aid, the denial of humanitarian access and humanitarian evacuations, filtration, and arrests of humanitarian actors, reveal a deliberately calculated method of warfare carried out by pro-Russian forces who intentionally employed several starvation tactics as a means to an end.
“I urge the International Criminal Court to consider these crimes and the collective punishment against innocent Ukrainian civilians, in pursuit of justice to Russian leadership, all the way up to the Kremlin.”
Global Rights Compliance’s Starvation Mobile Justice Team (SMJT), part of the UK, EU and US-sponsored Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group (ACA), used cutting-edge open-source research, analysing more than 1.5 billion square metres of satellite imagery, as well as photographs, videos, official public statements, and other digital data collected between May 2022 and February 2024.
Mariupol was one of the first cities to come under Russian attack in the opening weeks of the 2022 invasion, with deliberate attacks against energy infrastructure documented by the report from as early as February 27, when Russian forces struck a major powerline blacking out half of Mariupol city.
This was rapidly followed by a four-day shelling onslaught which cut power and gas to more than 450,000 Ukrainian residents, exposing them to winter temperatures plummeting to -12.4C.
Water pumping stations were also neutralised, cutting off access to heating and drinking water, and consequently forcing civilians to melt snow for drinking water and in some cases radiator water or street puddles to stave off dehydration.
In total, 90 percent of healthcare facilities were damaged or destroyed during the siege, with all 19 of the city’s hospitals impacted by end of May 2022.
Russian forces often treated full city blocks as military targets, making no effort to mitigate risk to civilian life or objects, damaging and destroying 90 parent of Mariupol’s residential homes in the siege.
A notorious attack attack on the Mariupol Drama Theatre, where several hundred people were residing, seemingly ignored clear lettering – ‘ДЕТИ’ (‘children’ in Russian) – written in front of the building.
Referring to the agreement which created the International Criminal Court, Yuriy Belousov, Head of the Department for Combating Crimes Committed in Conditions of Armed Conflict, Office of the General Prosecutor, said: “There is no crime under the Rome Statute that was not committed by the Russian military during a full-scale invasion. Every day, investigators and prosecutors document the consequences of war crimes, as well as the testimony of victims and witnesses.
“In this regard, Mariupol is a vivid example of the policy of destruction of the city and its population by the Russian occupiers.”
He added: “To combat such crimes, we optimise the work of the Prosecutor General’s Office and strengthen the knowledge and skills of our prosecutors and investigators with the support of international partners.
“We are open to strengthening our cooperation to ensure that these and other war crimes are effectively investigated, and the perpetrators brought to justice. We are grateful to everyone involved in this process, because only by coordinating joint efforts will we be able to ensure the inevitability of punishment.”
