Russian military officers allegedly killed five civilians and wounded 15 on Saturday following strikes in the Donetsk province, Ukraine. Vadym Filashkin, the governor of the province, reported that the shelling wounded more civilians, including children.

Three people were killed in Ivanivka, one in Kostiantynivka, and one in Toretsk. In total, over the last 24 hours, Russian armed forces fired 23 times at localities in the Donetsk region. In addition to Donetsk, at least eight people were wounded in Nikopol, eastern Ukraine, according to the local governor Serhi Lysak, including a toddler and a 10-year-old girl.

Russia’s military actions in the Donetsk province may constitute violations of international humanitarian law and the laws of war, specifically the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols. According to Article 51 of the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, civilian populations and individual civilians shall not be the object of attacks. The indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas which caused the casualties may therefore constitute a breach of these provisions.

Similarly, Article 57 of the protocol requires all possible precautions to be taken to avoid and minimize unexpected loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects. The reported 23 separate attacks on localities in the Donetsk region may indicate a practice of disregard for the provision, potentially comprising a violation of the principle of distinction. A cornerstone of international humanitarian law, the principle requires parties to a conflict to always distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Earlier this month, a wave of Russian missile attacks in Dnipro, Kramatorsk, Kryviy Rih, Kyiv, and Pokrvosk killed dozens of people, injured hundreds, and damaged Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital.

In March of 2023, the ICC issued arrest warrants for the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, and another Russian official on war crimes accusations, following indications of their involvement in the unlawful deportation of children from occupied territories of Ukraine.