Documenting Atrocities in the War in Ukraine

Pete Reed, a former U.S. Marine who was volunteering as a paramedic in Ukraine, was killed in an attack while tending to a wounded civilian. A Times analysis determined that Mr. Reed died in a targeted strike by a guided missile almost certainly fired by Russian troops. It is unclear whether the Russians realized they were firing at a group of aid workers, but an ambulance nearby was clearly marked with a red cross.

Exclusive phone records, documents, interviews and thousands of hours of video reveal how a Russian paratrooper unit killed dozens of people on one street in March.

Through text messages, death certificates, social media posts, satellite imagery and personal testimony, The Times retraced the final moments of dozens of Ukrainians killed along one street in Bucha.

In phone calls to friends and relatives at home, Russian soldiers gave damning insider accounts of battlefield failures and civilian executions, excoriating their leaders just weeks into the campaign to take Kyiv.

Witness testimony and videos obtained exclusively by The New York Times show how Russian paratroopers executed at least eight Ukrainian men in a Kyiv suburb on March 4, all potential war crimes. The information offers the clearest evidence yet that the victims were in Russian custody just before they were fatally shot. It contradicts Kremlin claims that the crimes were fabricated by Ukraine to falsely depict the Russians as the killers.

Dozens of bodies were discovered in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, about 20 miles from the capital. Journalists on assignment for The Times accompanied Bucha’s coroner as he determined the causes of death for 58 corpses.

Early in April, as Ukraine began to retake Russian-occupied towns in the suburbs of Kyiv, hundreds of corpses of civilian residents were found. They included children, older people and families. Some were discovered with their hands bound, some on their own property, some with gunshots to the head.

When reports and photographs of the bodies emerged, Russia claimed the deaths had been staged or had occurred after its soldiers had left. But New York Times reporting showed that many of the bodies had been visible on satellite images taken before the Russian pullout.

In the Kyiv suburb of Makariv, visual evidence and interviews reveal multiple instances where Russian forces appear to have openly fired on Ukrainian civilians. Security camera footage obtained and verified by The Times shows a Russian armored vehicle firing several rounds into a car occupied by two older people, with no apparent warning or provocation. Intercepted radio transmissions analyzed by The Times reveal members of the Russian military discussing a plan “to cover the residential area with artillery.”

A series of videos circulated online appear to show at least 11 Russian soldiers who were shot dead at close range after another Russian soldier had opened fire on Ukrainian troops. Both sides have accused the other of war crimes over the encounter; Moscow claims that the Ukrainians unlawfully executed unarmed prisoners of war, while Kyiv claims its soldiers acted in self-defense, and that the Russian soldier who opened fire did so while in the act of surrendering.

A clip posted to social media and verified by The Times appears to show a group of Ukrainian soldiers, including one who fatally shoots an apparently wounded Russian soldier. At least three other dead Russian soldiers appear to be seen nearby.

The New York Times analyzed hundreds of photos from Ukraine and found that Russia has widely and repeatedly used weapons that can kill, maim and destroy indiscriminately, often in civilian areas. That includes hundreds of cluster weapons that are banned under some treaties. The evidence suggests that Russia’s use of these kinds of weapons has not been anomalous but that it has formed the backbone of the country’s strategy for war.

Among the weapons Russia has used so far in the war is the PTM-1S land mine, a type of scatterable munition. These weapons are especially dangerous to civilians because they contain up to two dozen smaller mines that explode at intervals in the hours after a launch, turning ordinary streets into minefields. The use of scatterable land mines has largely been banned since 1997 by an international treaty signed by 164 countries, including Ukraine — but not Russia.

Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, had been a main departure point for thousands trying to leave for safer points west in the sixth week of the war. Its train station was packed with people on April 8 when the station became the target of a rocket assault that killed at least 50 and wounded many more.

The Times analyzed thousands of videos, photos and reports from the ground in Ukraine and identified more than 1,500 civilian buildings, vehicles and structures damaged by Russian forces. These include at least 23 hospitals and health infrastructure buildings, 330 schools, 27 cultural buildings, 98 commercial buildings, and 900 houses and apartments.

Russian attacks have damaged preschools, post offices, museums, sports facilities, factories and zoos. Power and gas lines have been severed; bridges and railway stations blown up. And at least 10 houses of worship have become targets. “To the extent that we’re seeing strikes on a daily basis, that’s just, at best, a level of carelessness that is incompatible with proper conduct of a war under humanitarian law,” said Leila Sadat, a professor and an adviser to the International Criminal Court.

Kharkiv, once a vibrant academic city of nearly 1.5 million people, has suffered enormous destruction, including buildings protected under the rules of war. “They are destroying our historical heritage and our architectural heritage. They want to destroy it all, they want to demoralize people,” said Dmytro Kuzubov, a Kharkiv resident.

The southeastern port city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov was once home to 450,000 people. Much of it has been obliterated by Russian forces. Roughly three-quarters of the population has fled or is unaccounted for, and food, water and power are scarce or nonexistent. Ukrainian officials say at least 20,000 residents have been killed, including at least 300 who had been sheltering in a theater.

Satellite images show evidence of mass graves, and repeated efforts to organize safe evacuations have collapsed. Thousands of Mariupol residents have been taken to Russian territory, possibly against their will. In late April Russia said it had effective control of the city, and the last significant pocket of resistance, ensconced in a vast steel mill, surrendered to Russian forces in mid-May.

While the city may be a militarily strategic prize for Russia, it is also the site of many potential war crimes, including willful killing of civilians, indiscriminate attacks on protected sites, denial of humanitarian aid and forced relocation.

Video evidence, along with interviews with seven residents of the Pokrovsky apartment complex in the town of Hostomel, reveal an extended trauma suffered by about 200 people who lived in the residential buildings after Russian forces occupied the complex. The soldiers held many residents hostage in the basements of their own buildings, forcing them to surrender their phones and taking over their apartments.

Early in the war, Lynsey Addario, a photojournalist on assignment for The Times, witnessed the killing of a Ukrainian family by Russian mortar fire in Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv. A mother, her two children and a family friend, laden with backpacks and a blue suitcase, had been trying to evacuate their city amid harsh fighting there. They were struck down before they could make it to the capital. Ms. Addario’s image was widely shared as early evidence of the brutality of the Russian invasion. She discussed the story behind the photo on an episode of “The Daily.”