Over 90 Ukrainian medics killed by Russian 'double-tap' strikes — OSCE
Russia has been deliberately targeting medics and rescue workers in Ukraine, a practice reminiscent of tactics previously used in Syria, Timothy Hanway, the acting U.S. envoy to the OSCE said on April 25.
"The Russian government is following its own example in Syria, where it carried out dozens of such airstrikes, as a result of which civilians, emergency services workers and humanitarian workers were killed," Hanway said.
Read also: Ambassador Brink voices outrage over Russia's double-tap strike on Zaporizhzhya
He specifically mentioned an incident on March 1, 2022, when Russian forces targeted the Kharkiv Regional State Administration building with a Kalibr missile. "After the rescuers arrived in five to seven minutes, a second strike with a similar rocket hit the building," Hanway noted, suggesting that the rescuers and those wounded in the initial strike were the intended targets.
Since the onset of these tactics, Russia has reportedly killed over 90 paramedics, police officers, nurses, and firefighters, and injured nearly 350 civilians across Ukraine. The frequency of these attacks has intensified recently, with nearly 30 rescue workers in Odesa, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia killed in March and April alone.
Russia's 'double-tap' strikes targeting emergency service workers
Russian forces struck a group of rescue workers with a drone who were extinguishing a fire in Donetsk Oblast on March 4. Two people were killed as a result.
Russia launched a "double-tap" strike on Kharkiv on April 4 — the second attack began when rescuers and medical workers arrived at the scene of the first drone crash. Three firefighters and a civilian woman were killed.
Russian drone attack on an ambulance in the frontline Kupyansk district injured a 58-year-old driver of an emergency medical team on April 13.
Russian drone also struck a fire truck that was involved in extinguishing a fire in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast after being shelled by Russian forces on April 19.
Rescue workers in Kherson Oblast came under repeated Russian fire that injured one firefighter and damaged equipment on April 25.
Read also: Russia attacked Odesa with two Iskander-M ballistic missiles fired from occupied Crimea - Humeniuk
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