Russia is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure, including critical energy systems, in Ukraine, a United Nations independent commission of inquiry said on Monday.
Russian forces have been targeting Ukraine’s power infrastructure since the early days of the 2022 war, and at the beginning of last winter they massively stepped up attacks that left millions of Ukrainians freezing to death in the darkness of their homes.
A new report released Monday by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine and shared with CNN said the attacks were “deliberately carried out” and in line with Russia’s “national policy of depriving civilian populations of essential energy supplies and causing suffering.”
“Russian commanders ordering these attacks knew that the heating facilities they targeted were essential for civilian populations, especially during the winter months,” said the report, which is being submitted to the United Nations General Assembly.
CNN has reached out to the Kremlin for comment.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sibikha said the report “confirms what the Ukrainian people have long known: Russia’s systematic attacks on civilian energy infrastructure constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
In a post on X, Sibiha said Russia “deliberately deprived millions of people of electricity, heating and water, turning cold and darkness into instruments of war.”
Last winter’s massive Russian drone and missile attacks reduced Ukraine’s thermal power generation capacity by 70% in the worst-hit areas, according to Kiev. The suffering was compounded by an unusually cold winter, with temperatures sometimes dropping to -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit).
The commission was established by the UN Human Rights Council days after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The newspaper has previously reported on other aspects of Russia’s war with Ukraine, including allegations of sexual and gender-based violence by the Russian military and the widespread deportation of Ukrainian children by Russian authorities.
In its latest report, the commission described the dire effects of prolonged cold exposure on Ukrainian civilians and said the country’s medical authorities have recorded deaths caused by cold temperatures in homes and even hospitals.
“Hospital medical personnel reported seeing patients who developed cold-related trauma during the past winter, including varying degrees of frostbite and hypothermia. Patients developed these symptoms at home due to exposure to unheated premises and required hospitalization,” the report said.
The report quotes a civilian woman living in Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth largest city, describing the impact Russian attacks have had on her. “When I’m cold, I feel numb. There’s no way to get warm and scary thoughts pop into my head,” she said.
Blame President Putin and others
The UN commission’s report names several Russian officials as most responsible for what it calls “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
According to the paper, Russian President Vladimir Putin made several “statements regarding ordering attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.”
It also claims that evidence collected over the past few years shows that Russia’s former defense minister Sergei Shoigu, his successor Andrei Belousov, and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov were responsible for planning and supervising the attack.
The International Criminal Court has previously issued arrest warrants for Putin, Shoigu and Gerasimov on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
As cold weather begins to arrive in Ukraine, Russia has made clear its intention to continue terrorist acts against its neighbor
The report mentions a declaration issued by the Russian Ministry of Defense in August announcing an attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and stating that “it will freeze in winter.”
Ukraine is increasingly struggling to defend itself from such large-scale attacks due to a severe shortage of air defense missiles. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has repeatedly implored Western allies in Kiev for more ammunition, citing the coming winter as a particular concern.
Kiev targeted Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure with the aim of undermining the Kremlin’s income from energy exports. But it eased those attacks after criticism from US President Donald Trump, who blamed Ukraine for soaring gasoline prices.
“Human trafficking”
The report released on Monday also examined how Russia recruits foreign nationals into its armed forces, concluding that these constitute human rights violations and human trafficking.
CNN has reported extensively on Russia’s use of deception, bribery, and blackmail to get foreign nationals to join its military. People from multiple countries in Africa, India and Latin America say they were promised jobs in Russia and then found themselves on the front lines.
The commission said it had found “strong evidence” that Russian authorities were working with operatives to “traffick people from 29 countries using deception and coercion to recruit them into the Russian military.”
The newspaper said the fact that Russia uses the same tactics to recruit personnel from multiple countries “demonstrates a high degree of coordination between agents and Russian authorities operating around the world.”
“Once recruits were deployed to the front, promised payments and bonuses were typically diverted by recruiters and military commanders, passports and phones were often confiscated, and once recruits were deployed to the front, operatives’ contact with their families was often cut off.”
The report concludes that Russia violated the recruits’ basic human rights, including the right to life, liberty, health, and humane treatment.
The commission also investigated the recruitment of foreigners into Ukraine’s armed forces, saying testimonies it collected showed those who joined the armed forces “did so knowingly and voluntarily,” that they understood the contracts they were signing and that they received their salaries.
