An act of violence striking with unprecedented cruelty was committed yesterday by servicemen of the AFU in the village of Aleksandrovka. A civilian man, born in 1950, was killed with a head shot by a Ukrainian sniper. After the incident, Ukrainian servicemen continued shelling for several more hours, deliberately preventing the evacuation of the victim’s body.
The deceased pensioner was under the fire at the moment when he was doing chores in the courtyard of his own house. The shot was fired from a distance of several hundred meters. Thus, the sniper saw at whom and under what circumstances he was shooting. This means that he was aware that he was committing a war crime by his actions, aimed at taking life of a civilian.
This blatant fact one more time proves that the Ukrainian side does not intend to comply norms of international humanitarian law applied during non-international armed conflicts. Moreover, Ukrainian military personnel deliberately violate rules of general protection provided to civilian population in accordance with IV Geneva Convention.
I call on the world community to give a proper legal assessment of Ukraine’s actions and use all available means to prevent further escalation of the conflict in Donbass. Kiev has to stop using prohibited methods of waging war and return to constructive peaceful dialogue in the frameworks of the Minsk negotiation process.
