War Crimes: Is Putin Targeting Civilians?

A Newsweek Investigation Of Russian Bombings Reveals The Facts Obscured By The Fog Of War

- William M. Arkin

WITH UKRAINE CLAIMING THAT RUSSIA HAS COMMITTED as many as 25,000 war crimes, more than a dozen organizations are busy putting together indictments that they hope will eventually land soldiers, commanders and even Vladimir Putin in court.

On the surface, most of these are open-and-shut cases: unlawful killings including summary executions, forced detention, deportations and 'disappearances' of civilians, torture and sexual assault. But in the bombing of Ukraine, establishing the basis for war crimes is far more difficult.

Newsweek examined the 25 top incidents of civilian deaths in the war. That two-month investigation has found that there is some truth to Moscow's assertion that it is not intentionally targeting civilians. The Russians have bombed civilian areas in cities where the ground fighting has been the most intense: in places like Mariupol, Kharkiv and Severodonetsk, to name just a few. Bombing with indiscriminate effect is a war crime. But in the 25 incidents Newsweek examined, the facts on the ground are much more muddled. Whether these incidents, totaling some 1,100 civilian deaths, are war crimes is a matter for the courts. Newsweek's conclusion is that none of the cases unambiguously qualifies.

Is Russia intentionally killing civilians? It seems outrageous to even pose the question, given the scope of bloodshed and the many strikes on hospitals, schools, homes and shopping centers that have been reported. But Newsweek has found that determining why such objects were bombed often reveals a more difficult narrative. In most incidents, the intended Russian targets were indeed military in nature. And there are many cases where civilians were killed because weapons-Russian and Ukrainian just failed to work.