War Crimes Watch
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, social media platforms and news reports almost immediately filled with images of brutality that, if true, defied all rules governing the behavior of fighters and the treatment of civilians in armed conflict.
The Associated Press and the PBS series Frontline teamed up immediately and began documenting evidence of war crimes in Ukraine using open source reporting methods while simultaneously sending teams of reporters into the conflict zone to document the atrocities first hand and try to find evidence of who, specifically, was responsible.
The result is a series of hard-hitting and human stories, two visual investigations, a catalog of alleged atrocities and a 90-minute documentary. The total package describes in granular detail the horror unfolding in Ukraine, follows the contemporaneous search for justice and lays out a case against two Russian military leaders, and eventually, President Vladimir Putin.
STORIES
OZERA, Ukraine (AP) — Tetiana Boikiv peered from the doorway of the cellar at the Russian soldiers questioning her husband about his phone.
ZDVYZHIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — Even by the standards of the important military officers who came and went in this tiny village, the man walking behind the Kamaz truck stood out.
BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — The first man arrived at 7:27 a.m. Russian soldiers covered his head and marched him up the driveway toward a nondescript office building.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Three days after the first Russian bombs struck Ukraine, Andrii Kuprash, the head of a village north of Kyiv, walked into a forest near his home and began to dig. He didn’t stop until he had carved out a shallow pit, big enough for a man like him. It was his just-in-case, a place to lie low if he needed.
BEIRUT (AP) — When the bulk cargo ship Laodicea docked in Lebanon last summer, Ukrainian diplomats said the vessel was carrying grain stolen by Russia and urged Lebanese officials to impound the ship.
IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — The first time the Russian soldiers caught him, they tossed him bound and blindfolded into a trench covered with wooden boards for days on end.
The Associated Press and FRONTLINE (PBS) are gathering, verifying and documenting evidence of potential war crimes in Russia's war in Ukraine.
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — For a month now, Russian forces have repeatedly attacked Ukrainian medical facilities, striking at hospitals, ambulances, medics, patients and even newborns — with at least 34 assaults independently documented by The Associated Press.
BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — There is a body in the basement of the abandoned yellow home at the end of the street near the railroad tracks. The man is young, pale, a dried trickle of blood by his mouth, shot to death and left in the dark, and no one knows why the Russians brought him there, to a home that wasn’t his.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The horrific images and stories tumbling out of Ukrainian towns like Bucha in the wake of the withdrawal of Russian troops bear witness to depravity on a scale recalling the barbarities of Cambodia, the Balkans, World War II.
BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — As he listened to his father die, the boy lay still on the asphalt. His elbow burned where a bullet had pierced him. His thumb stung from being grazed.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As she lay buried under the rubble, her legs broken and eyes blinded by blood and thick clouds of dust, all Inna Levchenko could hear was screams. It was 12:15 p.m. on March 3, and moments earlier a blast had pulverized the school where she’d taught for 30 years.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ten months into Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine, overwhelming evidence shows the Kremlin’s troops have waged total war, with disregard for international laws governing the treatment of civilians and conduct on the battlefield.
VIDEOS
WATCH | Putin's Attack on Ukraine: Documenting War Crimes
FRONTLINE and the Associated Press investigate evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine and the pursuit of justice.
WATCH |Crime Scene: Bucha
The Associated Press, FRONTLINE and SITU Research reviewed hundreds of hours of CCTV footage, intercepts of Russian phone calls and built a 3D model to show what happened in Bucha and identify who was responsible.
WATCH | Stolen Ukrainian Grain Fueling Putin’s War Machine
An investigation by the Associated Press and the PBS series @FRONTLINE has documented a sophisticated Russian-run smuggling operation that has used falsified manifests and seaborne subterfuge to steal Ukrainian grain worth at least $530 million.
AP Reporting Team
Erika Kinetz @ekinetz
Lori Hinnant @lhinnant
Vasilisa Stepanenko @VasilisaUKR
Cara Anna
Oleksandr Stashevskiy
Michael Biesecker @mbieseck
Beatrice DuPuy @Beatrice_DuPuy
Richard Lardner @rplardner
Helen Wieffering @helenwieffering
Jason Dearen @JHDearen
Juliet Linderman @julietlinderman
Joshua Goodman @APJoshGoodman
Sarah El Deeb @seldeeb
Larry Fenn
Solomiia Hera
Janine Graham
Frontline Reporting Team
Tom Jennings
Annie Wong
Taras Lazer
Anthony DeLorenzo
Dan Nolan
Miles Alvord
Priyanka Boghani
Aasma Mojiz
Tim Grucza
Scott Anger
Maddie Kornfeld