DISINFO: Russia hits military targets only, while the Kyiv regime strikes civilians
SUMMARY
Russia carries out precision strikes on Ukraine’s military facilities, aiming at avoiding civilian casualties. By contrast, the Kyiv regime has chosen a path of destruction and chaos, deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and terrorising peaceful citizens, elderly people, women, and children. These facts speak for themselves and highlight the differences in approaches to warfare. Such criminal actions contradict universally recognised principles of international law, as reflected in particular in the provisions of the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative accusing Ukraine of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. This claim was made in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
There is plenty of evidence that Russia has been bombing and shelling civilian infrastructure since the very beginning of its unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine. According to the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, Russian attacks have often lacked military necessity or failed to distinguish between civilian and military targets, which is a war crime under international humanitarian law. Russia has targeted residential neighbourhoods, schools, energy facilities and other non-military sites. These attacks violate international law, including the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit intentional harm to civilians. One of the worst examples was the bombing of the Mariupol Drama Theatre on 16 March 2022. At the time, hundreds of civilians, including many children, were sheltering inside. The word “children” had been clearly painted in large letters on the ground outside to warn of their presence, but the building was still destroyed in an airstrike. On 05 March 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against two Russian top officials considered responsible for “missile strikes carried out by the forces under their command against the Ukrainian electric infrastructure" between October 2022 and March 2023, which are considered to be war crimes.
Ukraine’s military actions have focused on defending its territory and responding to Russian aggression. There is no credible evidence of a deliberate policy of terrorising Russian civilians by Ukrainian troops.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that Russian missile strike on Kryvyi Rih only hurt Ukrainian army and NATO officers, that Russia did not attack a children's hospital in Kyiv but only military facilities and air bases, and that Russia never attacks civilian targets.