Ukraine: Int’l bodies failing to protect civilians, says Russian rights activist

 International human rights institutions have been unable to protect civilians and prevent the war crimes committed by the Ukrainian armed forces, member of Russia’s Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, Alexander Brod, said.

Brod, speaking on Thursday, added that a new protection mechanism is necessary.

Earlier in the day, the press centre of the Rossiya Segodnya international media group, RIA Novosti’s parent company, hosted a news conference on Kiev’s war crimes.

Within the framework of the news conference a citizen organisation known as the International Public Tribunal on the Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis presented its report.

“Atrocities and war crimes of the Kiev regime in the city of Dzerzhynsk (Toretsk) were committed.

“International human rights institutions have shown their ineffectiveness and could not stop this lawlessness (crimes against civilians) with the norms of international law.

“Therefore, the creation of a new system of international law, new mechanisms for protecting the safety of civilians arise,’’ Brod told the news conference.

Brod said that the Ukrainian regime had demonstrated its “animal essence” with its war crimes against civilians.

He emphasised that the city of Dzerzhinsk was renamed Toretsk by the Kiev authorities in 2016.

The Donetsk People’s Republic was strategically important for the Ukrainian armed forces.

This city was where Kiev placed its artillery to attack Donbas and the city of Gorlovka (also known as Horlivka).

“Of course, violence against women and children, the destruction of civilian facilities, looting, vandalism, these mass crimes have one thing in common Nazi ideology, the idea of racial superiority, militant Russophobia.

“So far, after the Ukrainian armed forces were driven out from Dzerzhinsk, shelling continues,’’ Brod said.

Russian troops took control of Dzerzhinsk in February.