On 6 March 2022, from 9:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. local time, the

Russian Armed Forces The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (, ), commonly referred to as the Russian Armed Forces, are the military forces of Russia. In terms of active-duty personnel, they are the world's fifth-largest military force, with at least two m ...

repeatedly shelled an

intersection In mathematics, the intersection of two or more objects is another object consisting of everything that is contained in all of the objects simultaneously. For example, in Euclidean geometry, when two lines in a plane are not parallel, their i ...

Irpin Irpin ( uk, Ірпі́нь, ) is a Hero City of Ukraine located on the Irpin River in Bucha Raion, Kyiv Oblast (province) right next to the city of Kyiv in northern Ukraine. Irpin hosts the administration of Irpin urban hromada, one of the hroma ...

that hundreds of civilians were using to escape to

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

, whilst a Ukrainian artillery position was located nearby. They killed eight Ukrainian civilians.

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

alleged the Russian army carried out an unlawful, indiscriminate, and disproportionate attack. The incident was part of an assault on Irpin, during the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

History

On 6 March 2022 there were hundreds of civilians at the intersection on the P30 road, near th
St. George's Ukrainian Orthodox Church
just south of a bridge that the Ukrainian army had destroyed to hinder the Russian invasion. The civilians were fleeing the Russian army's advance from Irpin towards Kyiv. In the intersection near the bridge were a dozen Ukrainian soldiers, some helping the civilians carry their luggage and children. The Ukrainian artillery was firing mortar rounds from a position about 180 meters away. No agreements had been reached between the parties about a temporary ceasefire or humanitarian corridor. Journalists of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' and freelance journalists on the scene report that for several hours the Russian army bombarded the intersection that the civilians were using to flee. The Russians fired explosive projectiles into the area, with projectiles hitting the intersection or the surrounding area every 10 minutes, killing at least eight civilians, as reported by the Ukrainian authorities. Among the victims were a group of four, including two children, who were killed by a mortar strike. According to

, it is possible that the projectiles were "observed" by the Russians, who would then know where they were landing and could easily have adjusted the aim away from the intersection. Instead they engaged in prolonged shelling of the intersection being used by civilians, which indicates "potential recklessness or deliberateness" on their part. The repeated nature of the attacks suggests that Russian forces "violated their obligations under international humanitarian law not to conduct indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks that harm civilians, and failed to take all feasible measures to avoid civilian casualties." The human rights organisation also stated that the Ukrainian forces "have an obligation to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize civilian harm," such as refraining from engaging in combat in populated areas.

References

{{2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine War crimes during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Russian war crimes in Ukraine March 2022 events in Ukraine Mass murder in 2022 Kyiv offensive (2022) Refugees in Ukraine Massacres in Ukraine Airstrikes conducted by Russia March 2022 crimes in Europe Airstrikes during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Irpin 21st-century mass murder in Ukraine

History

See also

References