Booby traps, gas attacks and double taps: Russia's dirty tricks exposed in Ukraine

The Russian military has a reputation for brutality, for ignoring the widely accepted rules of warfare.

And in Ukraine, Russian soldiers have committed a litany of war crimes. Some are systemic, like the mass removal of children from occupied areas. Others are mass murder, like the massacre in Bucha.

But there are also tactical dirty tricks, things they're doing to target Ukrainian military personnel and civilians. Let's look at three examples of that.

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Booby traps

The Russians love to leave behind tripwires and a variety of nasty anti-personnel mines that are outlawed by the Ottawa Convention.

They've put these in children's toys, washing machines, tins of food and even the bodies of civilians.

One video shows how Chechen soldiers attached hooks to the ends of branches. Snag it, and you set off a hand grenade, maiming if not killing you.

The Russians also like to stack land mines and use a hand grenade as a fuse, attaching it to a tripwire in the hope someone will set it off.

Chemical warfare

Another Russian tactic has been the use of banned chemicals – in particular CS gas, normally used for riot control.

It's banned as a weapon under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, but the Russians have fitted capsules of it to Shahed one-way attack drones and launched them into civilian areas.

There's also been drone footage of them dropping it into Ukrainian positions – which is why Ukrainian soldiers are issued with gas masks.

There's also evidence they've used Chloropicrin – a gas used in the First World War – which causes choking and uncontrollable vomiting.

Reports say hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers have been treated for exposure to these gases.

The double tap strike

The Russians have used this particularly nasty practice dozens of times to kill and injure thousands of civilians.

They'll target a Ukrainian city such as Odesa, Kherson or Bakmut with an Iskander ballistic missile, for instance.

And then, as the emergency services try to find survivors, they'll hit the same target again.

One video shows firefighters diving into the water to escape the second blast.

These double taps can be anything from 10 minutes to hours apart, and it's a tactic the Russians honed in Syria in places like Aleppo.

The Kremlin's playbook flagrantly breaches international law – the reason Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is calling for a global war crimes tribunal.

He wants this to hold Russia – and one man in particular – accountable for the invasion of Ukraine and an estimated 60,000 civilian casualties.