Russian "double-tap" strikes have killed more than 90 Ukrainian first responders and injured close to 350 civilians since April 2022, said Timothy Hanway, the acting U.S. envoy to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), in an address on April 25.
A "double-tap" attack is a military tactic in which an initial strike is followed by a delayed second strike intended to kill or injure first responders who arrived at the scene. It is a war crime.
Since a report issued shortly after the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Hanway said that Russia's usage of this illegal tactic has been increasing.
"In March and April (of 2024) alone, Russia’s iterative attacks hitting first responders killed nearly 30 rescue workers in Odesa, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia and wounded more than 20," Hanway said, citing the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Oleksandr Khorunzhyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine's State Emergency Service, previously told the Kyiv Independent that as of April 16, a total of 91 of the service's employees had been killed and another 351 wounded since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
Khorunzhyi said some of these casualties were the result of "double-tap" strikes but said the precise figure was still being calculated.
Russia's usage of "double-tap" strikes preceded its full-scale war in Ukraine, having been employed extensively in Syria and as far back as the wars in Chechnya.
"The Russian government is following its own example from Syria (in Ukraine)," said Hanway.
Dinara Khalilova
