Ukraine’s Third Army Corps has published an intercepted call and video footage which, if verified, point to grave war crimes, including an order to kill all adult civilians and the use of a child as a human shield.
The Russians were carrying out an offensive near the village of Shandryholove in Donetsk oblast. They are believed to have killed the young girl’s parents, before taking her hostage and using her, very openly, as a human shield to prevent Ukrainian defenders from firing at them.
The intercepted message was before the storming of the area, with the commander (whose call-name, the report says, is ‘Bali’) telling his fighters to be ready to act quickly and to kill everybody, with this in the full knowledge that he is talking about civilians. His words, in Russian, are: «Collect your things, check your machine guns, prepare the grenades. I’ll explain the plan of action. You’ll have to kill people, to kill everybody without exception. Everybody. Without exception. Well, not counting children. All of those there have nothing to do with us.” You can then hear Russian voices shouting to “eliminate all” [the Russian is worse: “всех в расход”], to storm the buildings and get inside quickly.
The report, published on 24 September 2025, says that the Russians did indeed burst into a house and shot dead the parents of a young girl. They seized her and used her as cover while continuing their offensive to prevent the Ukrainians from firing on them. Having murdered her parents and used her as a human shield, as the Russians moved from building to building, the voice can be heard telling the fighters to remove the bodies so that the little girl “doesn’t see them”.
The Third Army Corps comments that the intercepted call makes it clear that these actions were planned in advance. It calls on civilians in areas where military action is underway to evacuate
Both the deliberate killing of civilians and the use of any human being as a human shield are very serious war crimes. The gravity of the crime here cannot be overstated since they have clearly seized a child and used her as ‘cover’ to protect their own skins. All such material must be verified. If found to be authentic, then the Russians committed that war crime after first shooting and killing the child’s parents, very likely in her presence.
None of this is new. For 27 days in March 2022, the Russian invaders used 369 residents of the Chernihiv oblast village of Yahidne, including many children, as human shields, with ten residents dying. The civilians were imprisoned in horrifically overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in the school basement, with the Russians using the upper floors as their command point while occupying the village.
In its first report, published in October 2022, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine documented horrific crimes committed just in the first month of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (from 24 February 2024 to the end of March). They recorded indiscriminate attacks; the use of civilians as human shields and the shooting of civilians who were attempting to flee. The Commission also found that in areas occupied by Russian armed forces, there had been summary executions, unlawful confinement, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence against victims of all ages.
The Commission “found that in several cases, Russian armed forces appear to have deliberately positioned their troops or equipment in residential areas or near civilians to reduce the likelihood of attacks. Russian armed forces also forced civilians to remain inside or in proximity of their positions, exposing them to significant risk. “
The Commission also wrote that “investigations in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy regions reveal a pattern of summary executions in areas temporarily occupied by Russian armed forces in February and March 2022, which are violations of the right to life and war crimes.”
On 28 May 2025, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine issued a special report over Russia’s escalation in the previous ten months of drone attacks against civilians in Kherson oblast. The Commission concluded that these attacks were coordinated state policy and a crime against humanity.
The reported killing by Russian soldiers just days ago, of three Ukrainian pensioners in occupied Kherson oblast, was probably not a part of this coordinated policy. It was, nonetheless, a direct result of the lawlessness and sense of impunity that the Russian invaders have brought to any Ukrainian territory which falls under occupation (see: Russian soldiers murder three pensioners in occupied Kherson oblast )
