On September 9, 2025, a Russian glide bomb struck the Ukrainian village of Yarova, killing at least 21 retirees who were lined up to collect their pension payments.

These were not soldiers. These were elderly civilians doing something as routine and human as receiving their monthly support.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “brutally savage.” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called it a “barbaric crime” and demanded that the international community stop treating these atrocities as routine.

We agree—and we’re done waiting.

For too long, the world has responded to Russia’s war crimes with words, not action. The bombing in Yarova is just the latest in a long pattern of attacks on civilians—at train stations, apartment buildings, schools, and hospitals. But the deliberate targeting of pensioners standing in line is a new level of cruelty. It cannot go unanswered.

We, the undersigned, call on:

The United States and European Union to immediately enact new, coordinated sanctions targeting Russian energy exports, banking, and key state-owned industries

The United Nations to formally investigate the Yarova bombing as a war crime and refer the case to the International Criminal Court.

Russia cannot be allowed to normalize terror against the most vulnerable. The world must show that pensioners in line for help are not fair game—and that war crimes will be met with real consequences.