“We do not attack civilians…” The Green Corridor in Lypivka as a trap set by the Russian occupying forces - Instytut Pileckiego

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“We do not attack civilians…” The Green Corridor in Lypivka as a trap set by the Russian occupying forces

A report documenting witness accounts of the Russian attack on a civilian evacuation column from the village of Lypivka in the Kyiv region of Ukraine on 12 March 2022.

The report “We do not attack civilians…” The Green Corridor in Lypivka as a trap set by the Russian occupying forces, prepared by the team of the Pilecki Institute’s Raphael Lemkin Center for Documenting Russian Crimes in Ukraine, documents an attack by Russian troops on an evacuation column of civilian vehicles. It contains 22 individual testimonies of survivors.

  • Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022.
  • On 12 March 2022, a civilian evacuation column of 14 private vehicles was traveling along a road from Russian-occupied Lypivka to Ukrainian-controlled Korolivka.
  • At around 4 p.m., the civilian column came under fire from four Russian BMPs [infantry fighting vehicles] with large-caliber weapons.
  • At the time of the shelling, about 50 civilians (including nine children) and pets were in the vehicles.
  • Russian shelling of the evacuation column killed 6 people, including one child. Seven people were wounded, including 2 children.
  • Pets were also killed, either burning to death in cars or being shot from close range on the road.

"The execution of the evacuation column was not a random act and there cannot be any discussion of an error" - says Monika Andruszewska, the report's coordinator, in the introduction to the publication. "By establishing a so-called «green corridor» for evacuation from occupied Lypivka, Russian soldiers deliberately lured people into a deadly trap – people who simply wanted to save themselves and their families. By guaranteeing the evacuees «safe passage», most likely to divert the attention of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stationed just 1.5 kilometers away, they planned to launch assaults on the next towns in the Kyiv Oblast. After attacking the column of civilian vehicles, Russian military personnel tried to shoot Ukrainian civilians fleeing the massacre through the fields. Their zeal in trying to exterminate all the witnesses shows that they knowingly contrived to commit this war crime".

Selected photos from the report and a file with captions in Polish and English (CLICK).

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The report “We do not attack civilians…” The Green Corridor in Lypivka as a trap set by the Russian occupying forces, 2025 Raport „Nie atakujemy cywili…” Zielony korytarz w Łypiwce jako pułapka rosyjskich wojsk okupacyjnych, 2025 raport Lypiwka UA 2025.pdf

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