Dhe Russian forces reportedly used particularly insidious munitions in their offensive north-west of Kyiv in March, killing dozens of civilians. This emerges from a report by the British “Guardian”., released on Sunday, citing Ukrainian coroners. It is said to be so-called flechette ammunition. According to the report, up to 8,000 of these small metal darts can be fired with an artillery shell. The grenade exploded over the target with a timer, then the arrows fell on a strip up to 300 meters wide and 100 meters deep. The special insidiousness of arrows is said to be that when they hit people, they can break in the body, bend and thus cause further injuries.
The first indications of the use of flechette ammunition in the region had already become public on April 18th. A couple showed the Washington Post a series of three-centimetre-long metal arrows during a site visitthat stuck in gardens and cars. The local resident said she found the arrows on the morning of March 25 after a night of intense artillery shelling from both warring factions.
“Nail-Like Objects”
Forensic experts have now confirmed that people were also killed by the flechette ammunition. Several “nail-like objects” were found in the bodies of men and women from mass graves, Ukrainian coroner Vladyslav Pirovskyi told The Guardian. That was very difficult because they were very narrow. But other coroners would also have found the metal arrows. According to Pirovskyi, the majority of the bodies came from the region around the cities of Bucha and Irpin in Kyiv Oblast. Heavy fighting broke out there in March between the Russian attackers and the Ukrainian defenders. Moscow’s troops unsuccessfully broke off the offensive north-west of the capital and retreated. Subsequently, evidence of war crimes was found in the region. According to estimates by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 50 civilians were summarily shot in Bucha alone.
It is highly probable that the Flechette ammunition was fired by the Russian side. “The traces are a serious indication of a Russian attack,” said the German weapons and ammunition expert Lars Winkelsdorf on Monday of the FAZ Although both Kyiv and Moscow had taken over Soviet stocks of Flechette ammunition. But the Ukrainians stopped using them in the late 1990s. Apparently the situation is different on the Russian side. British weapons expert Neil Gibson pointed out on Twitter two weeks ago that that the Russian side has a 122mm Flechette grenade with the 3Sh1. According to Gibson, it should be an equivalent to the American anti-personnel projectile “Beehive”.
Uses of flechette projectiles are extremely rare. Originally designed to deal with large numbers of charging infantry in open country, they saw action during the First World War. The Americans later used flechette ammunition in the Vietnam War, Amnesty International also accuses Israel of to have used flechette ammunition in the Gaza Strip in the winter of 2008/2009. Up until now, aircraft have been used as carriers for arrow ammunition, which is available in many different versions, as well as tanks and barrel weapons. International humanitarian law does not prohibit their use. However, according to Amnesty International, they should not be used in densely populated areas. A stipulation to which the Russian armed forces in the Ukraine war often did not feel bound.
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