{"id":74195,"date":"2026-01-28T13:56:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T12:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/humanrights-online.org\/4-jahre-russischer-angriffskrieg-in-der-ukraine\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T16:19:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T15:19:45","slug":"4-years-of-russias-unprovoked-war-of-aggression-against-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humanrights-online.org\/az\/4-years-of-russias-unprovoked-war-of-aggression-against-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Years of Russia\u2019s Unprovoked War of Aggression Against Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

4 Years of Russia\u2019s Unprovoked War of Aggression Against Ukraine<\/h1>\n

The EU must confront the \u201cend of the values-based world order\u201d far more decisively on its own continent.<\/h2>\n

Everyone understands that the EU\u2019s Zeitenwende cannot be carried out as swiftly or sharply as the decision-making of a one-man rule in a single country. But the fact that, after four years, in the largest country in Europe, the Russian army continues to murder, terrorize, and torture day after day is a damning indictment of the EU. More than that: according to the latest UN report, last year was the \u201cdeadliest\u201d for civilians since the war began.<\/p>\n

While bad news cascades through the global information sphere, the term \u201chuman rights\u201d seems to be swallowed, only to resurface as the \u201cend of the values-based world order.\u201d The EU must not drift toward the end of that order and must oppose it far more resolutely, especially on its own continent.<\/p>\n

\"Flaggen

On knee-deep snow-covered Ukrainian cemeteries, seas of flags marking hundreds of thousands of war dead shatter in the biting wind (AI-generated image)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

On 24 February 2022, Putin catapulted modern 21st-century Europe overnight into a new world order with a single blow.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Forty-four million Ukrainians were bombed awake from their sleep, a quarter of the total population was forced to flee, triggering the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War. It was a war of aggression that, wherever Russian soldiers set foot on Ukrainian soil, was marked from the very first day by war crimes and atrocities.<\/p>\n

Twenty percent of the country\u2019s territory, an area larger than Hungary, with around eight million inhabitants before the war, is not only occupied by Russia but has been incorporated and forcibly Russified under rigid terror. The overwhelming majority of the population fled from its so-called \u201cliberator\u201d at the very beginning of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion. Twenty thousand Ukrainian children were abducted by the Russian army and are being subjected to enforced indoctrination as Russian patriots. Sixteen thousand Ukrainian civilians were abducted as well. The United Nations has clearly documented the systematic torture of abductees and prisoners of war, on a scale that even the long-serving UN Special Rapporteur on Torture had never witnessed before. Russia not only refuses to provide any information about the abducted civilians and prisoners of war, but also denies all access to detention camps, not even allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross to enter.<\/p>\n

That this catastrophic human rights situation in the Russian-occupied territories is so little known to the public in EU countries is itself a damning indictment of the European Union.<\/p>\n

For four years now, Ukraine has been relentlessly bombarded, day after day, and above all night after night. In the coldest winter since the start of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion, Russian bombs are once again aimed primarily at Ukrainian infrastructure. For months, apartments have been so bitterly cold that pipes freeze; people have to trudge for kilometres through snow and ice to find a place to warm up and to give their children a hot meal. Night after night it means: out of bed in the freezing cold and into the shelters with shivering children. Traumatised, filled with fear, deprived of sleep and rest, most of the time without heating and electricity, often even without running water. On knee-deep snow-covered Ukrainian cemeteries, seas of flags marking hundreds of thousands of war dead shatter in the biting wind.<\/p>\n

Anyone who claims to be a friend of Ukraine today and does not lose their mind over this has no mind left.<\/em><\/p>\n

Anyone in Ukraine today who is not completely broken is dead.<\/em><\/p>\n

A Four-Year Review of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR)\u2019s Work in Ukraine<\/h2>\n

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Images that no one could even have imagined four years ago<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

\"Hell\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As late as 23 February 2022, one day before the war began, a full-scale attack on Ukraine still seemed unthinkable to most of us:<\/p>\n

\u201cAn invasion of Ukraine, a country the size of France with 44 million people, who will certainly not line the streets waving fluttering Russian flags, <\/em>would unleash images upon the world that no one could even imagine and could put the cheat behind bars as a war criminal for the rest of his days\u2026\u201d<\/em>
\n\u2014 from our ISHR report at the time, \u201cThe Devil Is Loose in the East.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Largest Refugee Crisis Since the Second World War<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Putin\u2019s full-scale assault triggered, overnight, what has been described as the \u201clargest refugee movement since the Second World War,\u201d<\/em> involving around 14 million people.
In the heart of Europe, 44 million people were bombed awake in the early hours of the morning and confronted with the unimaginable reality of war in the 21st century.<\/p>\n<\/div>

ISHR\/KHPG Project: Voices of the War<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Stimmen<\/a>

Voices of the War That Must Never Be Forgotten<\/p><\/div>\n

Mechanical actions set in: searching for loved ones, searching for news and instructions, searching for safe places. Packing the most essential belongings. Saying goodbye to everything familiar. Fleeing into the unknown. How Ukrainians experienced that day was translated continuously into German by ISHR for more than a year in \u201cVoices of the War.\u201d<\/em> Because this rupture in Europe\u2019s human history of the 21st century must never be forgotten.<\/p>\n

The project was initiated by the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG) under the leadership of Jevhen Zakharov, a founding member of IGFM. In June 2024, IGFM\u2019s partner organization was awarded the Lev Kopelev Prize.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Russian War Atrocities from the Very Beginning<\/strong><\/p>\n

The previously unthinkable images of horror confronted us from the very first days of Russia\u2019s full-scale assault on Ukraine. This was also emphasized in the speech delivered by former German Federal President Joachim Gauck at our 50th Annual General Assembly on 9 April 2022:<\/p>\n

\"Gauck\"<\/a>

Former German Federal President Joachim Gauck at the ISHR Annual General Assembly 2022<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cSince 24 February 2022, Russia has been waging a murderous war of aggression against a peaceful, democratic state on the border of the European Union. For more than six weeks now, Ukrainian cities have been bombed and in some cases reduced to rubble. From the very first day, Putin\u2019s terror has been directed indiscriminately against women and children, soldiers and civilians\u2014who are killed, wounded, driven from their homes, and abducted. And if there was still a final spark of hope that this war between \u2018brotherly peoples\u2019 would not once again lead to horrific crimes, that spark was extinguished last weekend, when images from Bucha and many other places north of Kyiv reached us. Once again, we are frozen in horror at the sight of executed women and men, body after body lying along the roadside, entire families wiped out and buried.\u201d \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Bodies also littered the streets of the Ukrainian Black Sea metropolis of Mariupol, a city that before the war was home to nearly a tenth of Ukraine\u2019s population. \u201cThe Hell of Mariupol\u201d<\/a> was documented by journalist Michael Leh, a board member of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR), in an interview with paramedic Kateryna Sukhomlynova. More than a dozen mobile Russian crematoria were unable to keep up with destroying the evidence of their war crimes. The entire city was reduced to rubble.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Humanitarian Emergency Aid by ISHR for Over Half a Million Children, Elderly People, and the Sick<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Erste<\/a>

ISHR Emergency Aid Begins in Rural Communities After the Retreat of Russian Troops from the Kyiv Region<\/p><\/div>\n

It was a truly extraordinary phenomenon how Ukrainians, wherever they could, wherever they were not overrun by the Russian army, came together in solidarity and stabilized one another in this catastrophic situation. They immediately stepped in wherever help was possible.<\/p>\n

The ISHR Ukraine team, which at the time was in the midst of a nationwide project supporting EU accession, was scattered in all directions that very night. At their places of refuge, they went to neighbors, bringing food and water to those in need. Within two weeks, with the help of our German donors, they were able to distribute the first emergency aid packages on a larger scale. In the first two months, donations totaling more than \u20ac200,000 were used to build a reliable distribution network for IDP’s and people living near the front lines.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of refugees in Poland, Lithuania, and Moldova were also supplied with emergency aid packages by our local sections, at the borders and within the host countries. For two years, we published weekly updates on humanitarian assistance and the fates of those in need, images and stories that have been etched into our memory.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\"Krieg<\/a>

ISHR Aid. Countless Unforgettable Human Stories<\/p><\/div>\n

Hundreds of war refugees in Poland, Lithuania, and Moldova were also supplied with emergency aid packages by our local sections\u2014both at the borders and within the host countries. For two years, we published weekly updates on humanitarian assistance and on the personal fates of those in need\u2014countless images and stories that have become etched into our memory.<\/p>\n

While EU Europe debated helmets, the Zeitenwende, sanctions packages, and the risk of the war expanding, Ukrainian society confronted the new reality of war with remarkable strength and solidarity:<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking… doing something for society, is the only thing that helps us keep from losing our minds right now,\u201d <\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

\u2014 as the ISHR team in the war zone put it.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

\"Igfm<\/a>

ISHR\u2019s Ukraine Aid as a UN Partner, Led by Anton Aleksejew, Surpasses the One-Million Mark in the First Year of the War<\/p><\/div>\n

That ISHR was able, just three months later, on 1 June, to launch a large-scale aid project as a new partner of the UN\u2019s humanitarian assistance program (UHF) is the result of the tireless, relentless efforts and extraordinary dedication of all team members.<\/p>\n

By March 2023, using UN funds amounting to USD 1.3 million alone, we were able to reach half a million particularly vulnerable people with emergency aid packages.<\/p>\n

And despite the significant decline in donations for Ukraine, we are able, thanks to your support and the exceptional commitment of our volunteers, to continue providing humanitarian assistance<\/a> on an ongoing basis.<\/p>\n

Ambulances, medical supplies, hygiene items, food and children\u2019s toys are procured locally by our Kyiv office.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\"Leisenberg,<\/a>

J. Leisenberg (on the left), with the support of ISHR friends in Cottbus, has personally delivered aid worth around \u20ac1 million directly into the war zone since the beginning of the war. Shown here during a brief visit to the ISHR Kyiv office in October 2025.<\/p><\/div>\n

Particular recognition is due to the tireless members and friends in Cottbus, who to this day continue to deliver urgently needed supplies, especially medical aid, directly into the war zone.<\/p>\n

Food packages are also collected and packed at the Frankfurt office by an ever-energetic 85-year-old volunteer. With the support of the disaster relief service of the Federation of Free Evangelical Churches, these supplies are transported to their warehouse and from there to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The most active ISHR working group in Wittlich sends a large aid convoy every month to the three warehouses of the ISHR section in Lithuania. From there, the assistance benefits Ukrainian war refugees, with part of the aid forwarded onward to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Detailed information about ISHR\u2019s humanitarian work can be found in our monthly bulletin \u201cFor Human Rights.\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This also highlights another distinctive feature of ISHR: with us, you can closely track how your donation is used, or you can get involved yourself and lend a hand.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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