A UNITED NATIONS human rights report has been cited in a claim that Ukrainian forces committed war crimes against people with disabilities.

“The UN has reported that Ukraine’s military has been using vulnerable civilians as human shields in the Ukraine-Russia conflict”, an Irish-based Facebook page posted to its 10,000 followers.

Post from Irish Facebook page claiming the UN report confirmed Ukrainian military had used civilians as human shields during the Russian invasion.

According to the post, the UN demanded that “Ukraine’s military bare [sic] equal responsibility for a military attack on a nursing home 850 kilometers south of Kiev”.

The 9 July post was shared nearly 300 times and garnered a large number of anti-Ukraine comments.

The page claimed that “Western media has ignored” evidence of Ukraine “placing their weaponry and manpower in civilian buildings” during the conflict.

But the claim is missing context: the UN report doesn’t explicitly say that Ukraine’s defence forces used human shields but only expressed concern about allegations of this occurring.

The report by the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights was published in June 2022 and is sourced from the United Nations human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine.

It covers “violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law” that occurred during the Russian invasion of Ukraine between 24 February and 15 May 2022.

The report examines alleged breaches of international human rights law by both countries during the ongoing conflict.

These include, but are not limited to, alleged acts of sexual violence against civilians, the use of cluster munitions and torture.

Under a section titled “Means and methods – Areas of concern”  the report states that the UN had concerns that both sides “took up positions either in residential areas or near civilian objects” when launching military action without sufficiently protecting civilians.

“The OHCHR is further concerned by reports of the use of human shields,” it said.

Human shield use is defined in the report as “seeking to use the presence or movement of the civilian population or individual civilians to render certain points or areas immune from military operation”.

Article 28 of Geneva Convention IV forbids the use of human shields, with the practice considered a war crime.

The report cites the case of a care home in the Luhansk region as “emblematic” of the UN’s concerns, though it adds that researchers didn’t have “reliable numbers” relating to the incident.

So what happened at the home?

According to the UN report, staff at the facility caring for patients with disabilities and the elderly allegedly asked local authorities to evacuate at the beginning of March.

Ukrainian forces are then reported to have blocked surrounding roads and laid mines in the area, hindering evacuation efforts.

By 7 March, Ukrainian soldiers are reported to have entered the building where patients and staff remained due to the strategic proximity of the building to a main road.

Two days later, those forces reportedly exchanged fire with advancing Russian soldiers. While the report says it is “unclear” which group opened fire first, it states that no patients or staff were injured.

On 11 March, 71 patients with disabilities and 15 staff remained in the care house with the soldiers, which by then had no electricity or water.

“Soldiers from Russian affiliated armed groups” are then reported to have attacked the house with heavy weapons while patients and staff were trapped inside, before a fire broke out and spread through the care home.

The report said that some staff and patients were able to flee to a forest where they were assisted by a Russian-affiliated armed group.

Of the 71 patients, at least 22 are reported to have survived the attack, but “the exact number of persons killed remains unknown” according to the OHCHR.

Initially, Ukrainian officials had called for the Russian-affiliated soldiers to be tried for war crimes for attacking the care home, as they blamed them entirely for the deaths of civilians.

But the UN report did not find that Russia committed any war crimes; instead, it found that Ukrainian soldiers had entered and occupied the building before Russian forces attacked the care home, suggesting patients and staff were not the intended targets.

According to the paper, the UN is concerned about “reports of the use of human shields” and that the care home in question – located in the village of Stara Krasnianka – has been “emblematic” but stops short of directly accusing the Ukrainian military of using the patients and staff as human shields during the clash.

The claim on social media was therefore accurate in stating that the UN report contained references to human shields in the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

But it did not state “Ukraine’s military has been using vulnerable civilians as human shields”, as suggested in the Facebook claim.

The UNHR did not say that the Ukrainian military used the care home residents as human shields and it did not accuse the country’s forces of a war crime.

It said it was “concerned by reports of human shields” and listed the care home attack as “emblematic” of the issue.

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