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- Explainer: Why Russia is targeting Ukraine’s hospitals
Explainer: Why Russia is targeting Ukraine’s hospitals
Russia's strikes on medical facilities in Ukraine evoke scenes from its Syria campaign
International organizations voiced outrage after the United Nations health agency reported attacks on Ukraine’s healthcare facilities - but the strikes are nothing new for Moscow’s military.
Russia’s assaults on enemy-held healthcare facilities have a long history beyond the Ukraine conflict, and some analysts believe Moscow’s attacks on hospitals are even part of its wartime strategy.
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Russia launched a devastating bombing campaign with Syria’s government forces on rebel-held hospitals throughout the civil war there, rights groups say - though Moscow denies that they targeted healthcare facilities in the country.
“What is truly egregious is that wiping out hospitals appears to have become part of their military strategy,” Amnesty International Crisis Response Director Tirana Hassan said in a 2016 report.
Not only are hospitals essential to treat fighters wounded during clashes, their absence can harm morale and prompt populations to flee an area, paving the way for Russia to send in its ground troops.
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“It's a very good way to demoralize a population in an area of conflict, if you take away something so fundamental to the functioning of society,” Center for Strategic and International Studies Senior Vice President Stephen Morrison told PBS.
“You take that away, people lose hope, and it induces mass flight, and it weakens the armed enemy that you are opposing.”
Scores of healthcare facilities were destroyed and hundreds of medical professionals were killed by Russian strikes during the Syrian Civil War, a report from Amnesty International found, suggesting a troubling trend of targeted attacks.
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Additionally, the Syrian Archive, an organization documenting human rights violations in Syria, released data in 2021 which indicated over 90 percent of recorded attacks on hospitals in Syria had the characteristics of deliberate targeting.
These attacks could be considered war crimes under international humanitarian law.
Medical facilities usually receive special protection during wartime - and they only lose this status if they are being used instead for harmful military purposes, like storing weapons.
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Even if these facilities become valid military targets, assailants must first deliver a warning of the strike within a reasonable period of time, and can only attack if the notice goes unrecognized.
Moscow has largely avoided culpability for these attacks - in 2014, Russia and China blocked a UN Security Council resolution which would have allowed the International Criminal Court (ICC) to probe potential war crimes and human rights violations in Syria.
In 2020, Russia also announced its withdrawal from a voluntary UN agreement which helps protect humanitarian facilities in Syria by sharing information on their locations.
Whether the situation in Ukraine will be different remains to be seen, although ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced in February that he would open an investigation into possible war crimes committed there.