Residents in the Kyiv suburbs and around the country are gathering evidence at great personal risk
In Vorzel, a forested district north-west of Kyiv once known for its spas and health clubs and now under Russian occupation, lawyer Ihor Chudovsky spent the first weeks of the invasion documenting the toll of the war on his community – a rocket strike on an orphanage and civilians shot dead in the street.
The US president, Joe Biden, on Wednesday called Vladimir Putin a war criminal, drawing the wrath of the Kremlin, for acts such as these. War crimes are grave breaches of the international treaties, conventions and protocols governing armed conflict, such as the disproportionate use of force not justified by military necessity or the deliberate targeting of civilians, and war criminals are those who directly carry out the acts or are judged to have a command responsibility.
