The Reckoning Project
The Reckoning Project: Ukraine Testifies is an initiative of Ukrainian and international
reporters, analysts and lawyers aimed at eradicating impunity and bringing justice.
Our on-the-ground investigative journalists work together with lawyers to create multimedia content to ensure the war is not forgotten, even as it recedes from the headlines. At the same time, we collect testimonies and evidence that will have legal force in war crimes cases.
Team
Our team is an assembly of experienced and award-winning multimedia journalists, documentary filmmakers, academics, lawyers, and war crimes researchers who have worked in Syria, Chechnya, Rwanda, and Bosnia, and now joined the efforts to capture the historical truth of Russia's war against Ukraine.
From our painful experience, we have learned that justice can easily be lost, with devastating consequences for sustaining peace and accurate historical memory. Misinformation and authoritarian rule often prevail. Our mission is to ensure this never happens again.
Testimonies
Our team has learned firsthand that in too many horrifying conflicts, national and international courts have dismissed testimonies collected by journalists due to discrepancies between legal and journalistic modes of investigation.
The Reckoning Project is closing this gap by training journalists and researchers to swiftly record, collect, and conserve witness statements on alleged war crimes according to the methodology that makes them applicable for litigation so the voices of survivors are heard in the courts of law.
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More than 350 witnesses testified
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Most of the testimonies have been submitted to the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine
Universal Jurisdiction
On April 15, the initiative of Ukrainian and international journalists and lawyers documenting war crimes, The Reckoning Project (TRP), along with a Ukrainian citizen who was present in Buenos Aires, filed a criminal lawsuit with the Federal Court of Argentina. The case concerns the torture of a Ukrainian civilian by Russians in one of the cities they occupied.
Documentary Film
"Big Water"
The documentary project "Big Water" was created to anniversary of the Kakhovka HPP dam explosion. Its destruction is being investigated by the largest investigative group in Ukraine. To prove the crime against the environment committed by Russians, employees of the state environmental service collect soil and water samples daily. Sometimes, they need to work near the river, where they can be targeted by a Russian sniper from the occupied left bank.
Ecologists work under shelling in a building damaged by an air bomb. Laboratory research is conducted there. This film is about investigating a crime when you yourself are a victim, and when the full scale of the disaster's consequences will become clear only in years to come.
Autorka tekstu: Hanna Mamonowa
ZAPORA W KACHOWCE, ROK PÓŹNIEJ: UKRAIŃSCY EKOLODZY ZBIERAJĄ DOWODY ZBRODNI PRZECIWKO ŚRODOWISKU
6 czerwca 2023 roku seria potężnych eksplozji zniszczyła Kachowską Elektrownię Wodną na południu Ukrainy, jedną z największych w Europie. To była zbrodnia wojenna i ekobójstwo.
ORF TOPOS
UMWELTSCHUTZ UNTER LEBENSGEFAHR
Vertreter lokaler Behörden und der UNO sowie von NGOs und Teams von Investigativjournalistinnen und -journalisten untersuchen die Folgen der Sprengung des Kachowka-Staudammes vor über einem Jahr im ukrainischen Cherson. Aus strafrechtlichen Gründen, und weil es gilt, die richtigen Maßnahmen zu setzen. Erste Ergebnisse lassen eine Umweltkatastrophe vermuten. Die Arbeit der Ermittler ist lebensgefährlich.
ZIARUL DE GARDĂ
ECOLOGIȘTII UCRAINENI COLECTEAZĂ SUB FOCURI DE ARME DOVEZI ALE CRIMELOR DE MEDIU PENTRU A SCHIMBA LUMEA ȘI A FACE DREPTATE
Pe 6 iunie 2023, o serie de explozii puternice au distrus Centrala hidroelectrică Kahovka din sudul Ucrainei. A fost una dintre cele mai mari din Europa. În opt ore, peste 80 de așezări de pe ambele maluri ale fluviului Nipru au fost inundate.
INFOBAE
UN AÑO DESPUÉS DE LA EXPLOSIÓN EN LA PRESA DE KAKHOVKA, ECOLOGISTAS UCRANIANOS JUNTAN PRUEBAS PARA ENCONTRAR JUSTICIA: “FUE UN CRIMEN DE GUERRA”
El colapso del 6 de junio de 2023 causó una inundación masiva en una zona donde viven 100.000 personas. Mientras Ucrania busca llevar al banquillo a los responsables del desastre medioambiental, sus consecuencias siguen afectando a las comunidades.
HANNA MAMONOVOVÁ,
AKTUALNE.CZ
POHROMA PŘIŠLA ZA ÚSVITU. MĚL JSEM JEN PÁR HODIN, LÍČÍ UKRAJINEC ZKÁZU OBŘÍ PŘEHRADY
Před rokem zničila série silných výbuchů vodní elektrárnu Kachovka na jihu Ukrajiny, jednu z největších v Evropě. Během osmi hodin voda zaplavila více než osmdesát osad na obou březích Dněpru a v pasti zůstalo přes sto tisíc lidí. Hladina stoupla až o deset metrů. Deník Aktuálně.cz publikuje velkou reportáž ukrajinské novinářky o následcích této tragédie.
РАДІО СВОБОДА
«ВЕЛИКА ВОДА». ЕКОІНСПЕКТОРИ ЗАФІКСУВАЛИ ФАКТИ ЕКОЦИДУ ВНАСЛІДОК РУЙНУВАННЯ ГРЕБЛІ КАХОВСЬКОЇ ГЕС
Фільм про працівників Екологічної державної служби Херсонської області, які щоденно збирають матеріали, які підтверджують злочини Росії на території України і разом з Офісом Генпрокурора доводять факт вчинення Росією в Україні злочину екоциду через знищення греблі Каховського водосховища.
Special Projects
Beyond the scope of using testimonies to secure justice, we create large media projects for renowned Ukrainian and international outlets. Our writers and documentary filmmakers continue working to keep the court of public opinion engaged and ensure that stories of war crime survivors are in the consistent spotlight of global discussions, expediting justice for them.
Author: Svitlana Oslavska
JOURNEY INTO HORROR: A DAY WITH A PROSECUTOR INVESTIGATING RUSSIA'S WAR CRIMES IN UKRAINE
Viktoriia Shapovalova is in charge of investigating the crimes of the Russian army in Mykolaiv. The challenge of breaking the silence of the survivors and determining the identity of the kidnappers and torturers.
Author: Kristina Berdynskykh
STORIES OF CAPTIVITY AND RESISTANCE IN KREMLIN-OCCUPIED UKRAINE
The Russians turned a Nova Kakhovka police precinct into a place where they held, beat
up, and tortured civilians.The article was also published by our media partners OKO.press (Polish), zdg (Romanian), Aktuálně.cz (Czech)
Author: Svitlana Oslavska
Film: Nataliya Gumenyuk, Angelina Kariakina, Lyuba Knorozok, Yuriy Dunay, Peter Pomerantsev, Andriy Bashtovyi, Andriy Lysetskyi, Anna Tsyhyma
INSIDE THE BASEMENT WHERE AN ENTIRE UKRAINIAN VILLAGE SPENT A HARROWING MONTH IN CAPTIVITY
When Russians occupied Yahidne village in Chernihiv Oblast, its residents, including dozens of children and elderly people, were forced into a school basement for nearly a month.
Author: Nataliya Gumenyuk
Film: Anna Tsyhyma
HOW ONE BESIEGED HOSPITAL IN UKRAINE TREATED WOUNDED CITIZENS, SOLDIERS, AND INVADING RUSSIAN TROOPS
The village of Snihurivka was on the front line between Mykolaiv and the occupied Kherson. Medics of the large district hospital provided assistance to the wounded and were not yet realizing that over the next nine months they would be forced to coexist with the occupiers.
Authors: Nataliya Gumenyuk, Olena Nizhelska
Film: Anna Tsyhyma
AN INSIDE VIEW OF A DEADLY ATTACK ON A UKRAINIAN RAIL STATION
The Russian missile strike on the railway station in Kramatorsk remains one of the bloodiest attacks against Ukrainian civilians since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Author: Angelina Kariakina
THREE STORIES OF PREGNANCY AND BIRTH IN UKRAINE
“I was to be a pregnant woman in a country where it seemed a pregnant woman had become a target”. While investigating the Russian attack on the maternity hospital in Mariupol, the author discovers that she herself is expecting a child.
Authors: Anne Applebaum, Nataliya Gumenyuk
Film: Roman Bondarchuk
‘THEY DIDN’T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING, BUT JUST SPOILED PEOPLE’S LIVES’. HOW RUSSIAN INVADERS UNLEASHED VIOLENCE ON SMALL-TOWN RESIDENTS
In the occupied territories, Russia systematically persecutes Ukrainians active in their communities, heads of villages and towns, and local volunteers.
Author: Iryna Lopatina
Film: Nataliya Gumenyuk, Angelina Kariakina, Lyuba Knorozok
‘DAD, YOU HAVE TO COME—OR WE WILL BE ADOPTED’: ONE UKRAINIAN FAMILY’S HARROWING WARTIME SAGA
Three children survived the siege of Mariupol, forced relocation, their father’s horrific detainment, and their own exile—to Russia.
Author: Vira Kuryko-Ahiienko
Film: Oksana Karpovych, Angelina Kariakina, Vadym Ilkov, Lyuba Knorozok
ONE DAY UNDER PUTIN’S UNGUIDED BOMBS
On March 3, 2022, a series of Russian aerial attacks on Chernihiv, a northeastern Ukrainian city near the Russia and Belarus borders, marked one of the first massive airstrikes since the start of the Kremlin’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
Author: Janine di Giovanni
VLADIMIR PUTIN’S INHUMANE BLUEPRINT TO TERRORIZE CIVILIANS IN CHECHNYA, SYRIA—AND NOW UKRAINE
Vladimir Putin became the prime minister of Russia in August 1999, then president in March 2000. And in the 24 years since, the list of wars conducted on his watch amounts to a catalog of human misery. That roster of calamity has culminated, of course, in the war that has mobilized Europe against Putin’s war machine—the devastating invasion of Ukraine.
Author: Gulliver Cragg
RUSSIAN WAR CRIMES IN UKRAINE: THE QUEST FOR JUSTICE
Authors: Daria Yanushkevych, Denys Shaposhnikov
‘IF ONLY WE HAD KNOWN’: HALF A YEAR AFTER THE ROCKET ATTACK ON CHERNIHIV, THE TORII FAMILY SPOKE ABOUT THEIR LOSS
Returning from church on the feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus, the Torii family was hit by a rocket attack on the drama theatre in Chernihiv.
«The Scariest Days of My Life»
In 2023, we published a book featuring reports by journalists of The Reckoning Project, which became a historical document of the first year of the Russian full-scale war against Ukraine. The voices of witnesses and survivors had already shattered Russia's intention to conceal its atrocities once again. The texts in the book transformed tragic memories into evidence that can be used in legal proceedings.
