Ukrainian authorities say they have identified five Russian soldiers who allegedly shot at civilian cars in the Kyiv region during the first days of the war.
CCTV footage gathered by Ukrainian investigators shows Russian units shooting at civilian cars along roads just outside Hostomel, a town north-west of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
In one of the clips, a car catches fire after being shot by troops stationed in the forest opposite. The driver of the car died, according to Ihor Klymenko, the head of Ukraine’s national police force.
Klymenko said the Russian soldiers shot as if they were on “safari”. One of the cars examined as part of the case had 178 bullet holes, he said.
After Russian forces were pushed out of parts of northern Ukraine in late March, international investigators and prosecutors have made investigating war crimes in Ukraine a priority.
Erik Mose, the head of the United Nation’s team investigating war crimes in Ukraine, said on Friday they had found evidence of war crimes including executions, torture and sexual violence in civilian areas. Mose said he was especially “struck by the large number of executions in the areas that we visited”.
The Russian soldiers are charged with killing five people, and injuring a further six, who were trying to flee Hostomel on 25 February, a day after Russia invaded. A total of 11 people were killed and 14 injured on the stretch of road in question, say Ukraine’s authorities.
Ukraine’s security services alleged in a statement that the charged Russian soldiers had shot at 12 cars over a period of six hours. According to security services, three of the five men identified gave the orders to shoot at the vehicles.
“The criminal order to shoot at civilians was given by the commander of the riot police (from Krasnoyarsk region), his deputy and Russian national guard commander from the Krasnoyarsk region,” read the statement from Ukraine’s security services, which was accompanied by pictures of the men taken from CCTV.
One of those shot along the stretch of road outside Hostomel was a German national, driving to collect his family, but he survived, said Klymenko.
In March, before being shot by a Russian sniper himself, Eduard Lysovysk, a 59-year-old man from Hostomel, helped a woman whose car had been shot at while trying to leave the town with her grandson, Sasha. Sasha was shot in the forehead and 10 times in the chest and did not survive.
Lysovyk kept a visual diary, which included footage of several shot bloodstained cars on the road outside Hostomel.
