GR Editors Note:
The Aidar Battalion is a “Territorial Defense Battalion” made up of volunteers. It is acknowledged as “a volunteer military detachment of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense.”
There are some 30 volunteer battalions operating in the Donbass region “loosely integrated into the Kiev regimes “anti-terrorist operation” (ATO) directed against Lugansk and Donesk.
According to an earlier report by Amnesty International,
The Aidar battalion is one of over thirty so-called volunteer battalions to have emerged in the wake of the conflict, which have been loosely integrated into Ukrainian security structures as they seek to retake separatist held areas.
Our findings indicate that, while formally operating under the command of the Ukrainian security forces combined headquarters in the region members of the Aidar battalion act with virtually no oversight or control, and local police are either unwilling or unable to address the abuses.
Some of the abuses committed by members of the Aidar battalion amount to war crimes, for which both the perpetrators and, possibly, the commanders would bear responsibility under national and international law.
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In researching war crimes in Ukraine, I came across this disturbing report from Newsweek:
Groups of right-wing Ukrainian nationalists are committing war crimes in the rebel-held territories of Eastern Ukraine, according to a report from Amnesty International, as evidence emerged in local media of the volunteer militias beheading their victims.
Armed volunteers who refer to themselves as the Aidar battalion “have been involved in widespread abuses, including abductions, unlawful detention, ill-treatment, theft, extortion, and possible executions”, Amnesty said.
The organisation has also published a report detailing similar alleged atrocities committed by pro-Russian militants, highlighting the brutality of the conflict which has claimed over 3,000 lives.
Amnesty’s statement came before images of what appeared to be the severed heads of two civilians’ started circulating on social media today, identified by Russian news channel NTV as the heads of rebel hostages.
Shortly after, Kiev-based news network Pravilnoe TV reported that it had spoken with one of the mothers of the victims who confirmed her son was a rebel, captured during fighting in Donetsk.
She said she had received her son’s head in a wooden box in the post, blaming nationalist volunteers for her son’s death. Newsweek has not been able to verify the report independently.
There are over 30 pro-nationalist, volunteer battalions similar to Aidar, such as Ukraina, DND Metinvest and Kiev 1, all funded by private investors.
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Amnesty’s report, however, indicates Kiev’s loose regulation on volunteer groups and its “members… act with virtually no oversight or control”.
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Meanwhile Norwegian channel TV2 presented footage yesterday of the Azov battalion flying flags with the symbols of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi party – Patriot of Ukraine.
Sadly, the U.S. and NATO have backed and applauded numerous war crimes in Ukraine. They have more-or-less switched sides.
The U.S. is also a very close ally of Saudi Arabia … which cuts off more heads than ISIS.
