The link contains also an version of the report in Ukrainian.

- 12-month comprehensive investigation finds Russian forces “intended to starve civilians as a method of warfare” in the battle for Mariupol.

- 450,000 civilians targeted by Russian assault on the City, cutting off all water, electricity and gas supply.

- Ukrainian civilians forced to drink from puddles, radiator batteries, and melt snow.

- Civilians exposed to plummeting -12.4°C temperatures by Russian attacks on city’s power.

- 90% of healthcare facilities and residential homes destroyed or damaged during siege.

- Russian forces indiscriminately bombed food distribution points, medical facilities, and agreed-upon humanitarian corridors.

- Attempts to provide humanitarian aid to encircled civilians denied.

- Report analyses over 1.5 billion square metres of satellite imagery, photographs, videos, official public statements, and other digital data.

- Report comprises information from the Ukrainian government and unseen photos from a Mariupol police officer present during the siege.

- Report forms part of a wider submission to the International Criminal Court.

-Report by international human rights foundation lands ahead of Global Peace Summit aimed at achieving peace in Ukraine from 15-16 June.

A new 81-page report by international human rights foundation Global Rights Compliance publishes evidence of Russian and pro-Russian forces using starvation as a method of warfare against Ukrainian civilians during their 85-day siege of Mariupol City in the South East of Ukraine, between February and May 2022.

‘The Hope Left Us’, produced by Global Rights Compliance’s Starvation Mobile Justice Team (SMJT) consisting of international lawyers, OSINT researchers, and arms and munitions experts, concludes a 12-month investigation and analysis on the battle for Mariupol.

The report finds evidence of a strategy by Russian sieging forces to deliberately attack and destroy critical civilian infrastructure, obstruct humanitarian evacuation corridors, and prevent the distribution of humanitarian aid to starving Ukrainians confined in the city.

Global Rights Compliance’s SMJT is part of the UK, EU and US-sponsored Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group (ACA), which was launched in response to the need of the Office of the Prosecutor General (OPG) to increase capacity to investigate and prosecute atrocity crimes perpetrated since the full-scale invasion by Russian forces in February 2022.

The investigation utilised cutting-edge open-source research, analysing over 1.5 billion square metres of satellite imagery, as well as photographs, videos, official public statements, and other digital data collected between May 2022 and February 2024. Thorough damage analysis involved the creation of a bespoke algorithm cross-referencing the damage identified by online mapping data and Weapons Ordnance Munitions and Explosives specialists, as well as Ukrainian governmental military experts.

The report focusses on the 85-day siege of Mariupol revealing evidence of systematic attacks by Russian forces against critical civilian infrastructure, including energy, water, food and distribution points, and healthcare infrastructure. These attacks crippled Mariupol civilians’ access to critical resources while wilfully impeding their access to aid and simultaneously denying them access to organised evacuation routes, part of a ruthless plan to starve the city’s population into submission.

This pattern of conduct, the report states, leaves experts to conclude that the starvation of civilians in Mariupol City by Russian forces was intentionally used as a method of warfare.

Mariupol was one of the first cities to come under Russian attack in the opening weeks of the 2022 invasion, with deliberate attacks against energy infrastructure documented by the report from as early as 27 February, when Russian forces struck a major powerline blacking out half of Mariupol city.

This was immediately followed by a four-day onslaught of shelling that fully cut power and gas to over 450,000 Ukrainian residents, exposing them to winter temperatures plummeting to -12.4°C. Water pumping stations were also neutralised, cutting off access to heating and drinking water, forcing civilians to melt snow for drinking water and in some cases radiator water or street puddles to avoid dehydration.

90% of healthcare facilities indispensable to civilian’s survival were damaged or destroyed during the siege, with all 19 of the city’s hospitals impacted by end of May 2022.

Russian forces often treated full city blocks as military targets, making no effort to mitigate risk to civilian life or objects, damaging and destroying 90% of Mariupol’s residential homes in the siege. In the midst of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe, Ukrainians set up ‘distribution points’ across the city for basic necessities. However, these too came under attack, with at least 22 supermarkets damaged or destroyed despite being used for distribution.

One attack investigated by the SMJT was on the Neptun Swimming Pool Complex, despite satellite imagery showing the clear presence of hundreds of civilians queuing at this distribution point in the days immediately prior.

An attack on the same day on the Mariupol Drama Theatre, where several hundred people were residing, seemingly ignored clear lettering – ‘ДЕТИ’ (‘children’ in Russian) – written in front of the building. The SMJT’s analysis shows that this lettering was clearly visible from the altitude range from which Russian warplanes would have dropped the involved ammunition and unavoidable to surveying flights.

Seeking to justify these attacks, Russian authorities put forward a series of claims that these areas had been overtaken by Ukrainian forces. However, analysis by Global Rights Compliance of satellite imagery and videos posted to social media notes a lack of evidence of any legitimate military targets – soldiers, checkpoints, or equipment – present.

The report also finds that, throughout Russia’s siege, efforts to alleviate the suffering of civilians were severely obstructed, with agreed-upon evacuation routes and humanitarian corridors subjected to airstrikes and shelling. It finds that contrary to statements by representatives of the so-called ‘Donetsk People’s Republic,’ Ukrainian humanitarian aid was denied entry to the city. Where Russian aid was delivered, this was only to those supporting Russian occupation,with aid boxes branded: “We do not abandon our own”.

Evidence and analysis from ‘The Hope Left Us’ will form part of a larger dossier of starvation tactics used across Ukraine, which will be submitted to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for further consideration.

Catriona Murdoch, Global Rights Compliance Vice President and Director of the Starvation and Humanitarian Crisis Division, said:

“The present report further captures the broader narrative of the siege through the patterned lens of attacks against objects indispensable to survival (OIS) of the civilian population – electricity, heating, drinking water, food, and medical care. It does so because – in the aggregate – the seemingly isolated attacks against OIS, when paired with associated violations and crimes related to the weaponisation of humanitarian aid, the denial of humanitarian access and humanitarian evacuations, filtration, and arrests of humanitarian actors, reveal a deliberately calculated method of warfare carried out by pro-Russian forces who intentionally employed several starvation tactics as a means to an end.

"I urge the International Criminal Court to consider these crimes and the collective punishment against innocent Ukrainian civilians, in pursuit of justice to Russian leadership, all the way up to the Kremlin.”

Yuriy Belousov, Head of the Department for Combating Crimes Committed in Conditions of Armed Conflict, Office of the General Prosecutor, said:

“There is no crime under the Rome Statute that was not committed by the Russian military during a full-scale invasion. Every day, investigators and prosecutors document the consequences of war crimes, as well as the testimony of victims and witnesses. In this regard, Mariupol is a vivid example of the policy of destruction of the city and its population by the Russian occupiers.

“To combat such crimes, we optimize the work of the Prosecutor General’s Office and strengthen the knowledge and skills of our prosecutors and investigators with the support of international partners. We are open to strengthening our cooperation to ensure that these and other war crimes are effectively investigated, and the perpetrators brought to justice. We are grateful to everyone involved in this process, because only by coordinating joint efforts will we be able to ensure the inevitability of punishment.”