Putting victims at the centre: Vrinda Grover on the commission investigating crimes in Ukraine war

In August, Vrinda Grover along with the other commissioners of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine visited a residential building in the Uman city that had been attacked by a missile in April.

“An entire wing of the residential apartment was destroyed,” the noted Indian human rights lawyer recalled. “The attack had taken place at 4.30 am, when people were sleeping in their homes.” She had met some of the survivors of the attack, whose family members had been killed or whose houses were wrecked, no longer inhabitable.

International law prohibits the targeting of residential buildings even during a war.

Grover was in Ukraine as a member of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, which had been established by the United Nations Human Rights Council on March 4, 2022, to “investigate all alleged violations and abuses of human rights, violations of international humanitarian law and related crimes in the context of the aggression against Ukraine by the Russian Federation”.

Almost two years since Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the human cost has been immense. This latest salvo in the Russia-Ukraine international conflict, dating back to 2014, has led to Russia occupying close to 20% of internationally recognised Ukrainian territory, an estimated 24,500 Ukrainians being killed and...

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