Please stop the humanitarian catastrophe.
Ceasefire as a precondition for successful peace talks.
The right to life is among the fundamental human rights. The 10-day-long special operation of the Russian army in Ukraine led to the violation of this right on a massive scale. Russian and Ukrainian servicemen are dying, civilians are dying, including children, hospitals are overflowed with the wounded.
More than a million refugees have left Ukraine, millions are fleeing in bomb shelters. There is a large-scale humanitarian catastrophe. “Most of the people were killed by large-area weapons, including airstrikes and shelling from heavy artillery and multiple rocket launchers”, said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, speaking at an emergency meeting of the UN Human Rights Council. International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said 38 countries have asked the ICC to launch an investigation into “possible war crimes committed by Russia“.
I don’t want our country Russia to become a world pariah. And I call on the leadership of the Russian Federation to show political will, stop this humanitarian catastrophe, and declare an immediate ceasefire as a measure to ensure the success of the ongoing peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
Russia, Moscow, March 3, 2022
Boris Altshuler
Chairman of the Board of the NGO “Right of the Child”,
Member of the Moscow Helsinki Group.
2014 – Andrei Sakharov Prize of the American Physical Society “For many years struggle in defense of democracy in Russia and for the work in defense of the rights of children.”