Amnesty: Russia Has Killed Hundreds of Civilians SInce Joining Syria War

Amnesty International has released a new report detailing how Russia is killing hundreds of innocents in its bombings of heavily-populated areas in Syria.

While Russia is utilizing cluster bombs and other primitive unguided weapons to take out anti-Assad targets, over 200 civilians have been killed in the crossfire in less than three months, Amnesty reports.

But many more civilians, in all likelihood, were killed by Russian bombs, as the report only focused on six attacks, and Russian bombers continue to attack parts of Syria with multiple runs on a daily basis.

“Some Russian air strikes appear to have directly attacked civilians or civilian objects by striking residential areas with no evident military target and even medical facilities, resulting in deaths and injuries to civilians,” Philip Luther, Amnesty’s director of its MIddle East and North Africa program, said in the report. “Such attacks may amount to war crimes.”

Another advocacy group, Human Rights Watch, has also accused the Kremlin of using cluster bombs, documenting Moscow’s use of the munitions some twenty times since September 30, when Russia joined the war in defense of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Russia claims it’s forces are operating in conjunction with international law.

“Russia is conducting its operation in strict conformity with principles and norms of the international law, including those sections of the international law that regulate using and bans on using one or another type of weapons,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said.

Sources inside Syria told Breitbart News last month that Russia was dropping cluster munitions indiscriminately on civilian targets.

Cluster bombs are munitions that contain deadly material. On impact, the blast disperses hundreds of deadly metal fragments. When these submunitions deploy, they spread out over hundreds of yards of territory, where individuals far away from the target site are subject to being killed or seriously injured. A single cluster bomb may hold hundreds of submunitions.

The source, from anti-Islamic State group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, told Breitbart News that Vladimir Putin’s forces “bombed residential neighborhoods” and took no precautionary measures before engaging in its bombing runs.

Research completed by the Institute for the Study of War found that Russian forces are focusing their attacks on rebel forces in areas contested by the Assad regime. The think tank found that ninety-percent of Russian air strikes have not targeted the Islamic State.