The UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [website] released a report [report, PDF] Thursday claiming that an estimated 9,300 people in Ukraine. including 2,000civilians, have been killed since the beginning of the separatist conflict in 2014. The report stated that there has been very little accountability [press release] for the deaths, and called for an end to impunity. Although the UN has found “90 per cent of conflict-related civilian deaths resulting from indiscriminate shelling of residential areas,” it noted that citizens have also seemed to be targeted for their alleged political beliefs, particularly in the areas of Donetsk and Luhansk. The report also claimed that a number of the killings could amount to crimes against humanity. The report focuses on the civilian deaths, but notes extrajudicial killings of both servicemen and civilians, and also documents the “intentional homicide” of Ukrainian servicemen.

Russia and Ukraine have been in conflict since the annexation of Crimea [JURIST backgrounder] in March 2014. In June the OHCHR reported that the human rights situation in Ukraine remains troublesome [JURIST report] following two years of conflict with Russia. In February Russia filed suit [JURIST report] against Ukraine over Ukraine’s default on $3 billion in bonds. A Ukrainian official said in January that the nation plans to sue Russia [JURIST report] in the International Court of Justice [official website] on claims of financing terrorism. In August a Russian military court sentenced [JURIST report] two Ukrainian activists to substantial jail time for the charge of conspiring to commit terror attacks. In March of last year the EU committed to stand by its policy of refusing to recognize Crimea’s annexation [JURIST report]. In February 2015 Russian liberal political activist Boris Nemtsov was shot in the back four times [BBC report] in the middle of busy downtown Moscow. Nemtsov was openly politically opposed to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its role in Ukraine.