Russian army allegedly used ‘flechette’ shells on civilians

By lifting the siege of kyiv to redirect its assault towards the east and south of the country, the Russian army revealed some of the atrocities of this war. In Boutcha, a martyr city to the west of the capital, forensic scientists investigating possible war crimes claim that several dozen civilians were killed by small metal arrows from the explosion of shells fired by the Russian artillery, reveals The Guardian.

Several cases discovered around kyiv

One of the investigators confirms to the English daily that several of his colleagues have found similar cases in certain mass graves around kyiv. Information validated by a journalist from the Washington Post who noticed these darts in the garden of one of the inhabitants of Boutcha: “If you look carefully at the ground around my house, you will find many more”, testifies this 54-year-old Ukrainian.

An independent group of arms experts was able to confirm to the Guardian that these darts are indeed anti-personnel weapons, once widely used during the First World War. These kinds of small nails, elongated by four wings, are between 3 and 4 cm. Each shell can hold up to 8,000. At the moment of the explosion, they are expelled in a cone up to 100 m away. Several witnesses claim that dart shells exploded in Boutcha a few days before the withdrawal of Russian forces at the end of March.

A potential war crime

Even if no prohibition exists for this type of ammunition in international law, the use of such imprecise lethal weapons in civilian areas constitutes, on the other hand, a violation of international conventions.

“Darts are anti-personnel weapons intended to penetrate dense vegetation and hit many enemy soldiers,” Amnesty International said. They should never be used in built-up civilian areas. »