The United Nations-backed human rights experts have declared Russia’s torture of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war as a crime against humanity. The independent commission investigating human rights violations in Ukraine stated that Russia has committed widespread and systematic torture in both Ukraine and Russia, including in detention facilities. The commission, appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, revealed that Russian authorities have carried out torture in all provinces of Ukraine under their control, as well as in facilities investigated in the Russian Federation. The Russian Mission to the U.N. declined to comment on the report.
The commission, functioning as an investigative body, has received reports from 41 different detention centers in nine occupied regions of Ukraine and eight areas in Russia. The evidence gathered by the commission indicates that violent practices common in Russian detention facilities were also present in similar facilities in Russian-occupied areas in eastern Ukraine. Additionally, the commission found further evidence of the recurring use of sexual violence as a form of torture. Detainees were subjected to rape, forced nudity, body searches, and other forms of sexual violence, leading to lasting psychological trauma.
The use of brutal and degrading practices against Ukrainian detainees was also revealed by the commission. Detainees reported being subjected to a harsh admission procedure, where practices were designed to scare, break, humiliate, coerce, and punish them. Surveillance cameras were used to monitor detainees, and collective punishment was imposed for rule violations. Interrogations were accompanied by violent treatment, indicating a systemic pattern of abuse. The commission also identified a Russian organizational structure coordinating and enabling torture in detention facilities, with evidence of leadership ordering, encouraging, tolerating, or failing to stop torture.
Russian security forces and staff transferred violent practices against detainees in Russia to detention facilities in areas occupied in Ukraine, the commission found. This evidence led to the conclusion that Russian authorities acted according to a coordinated state policy of torturing Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war. As a result, the experts determined that in addition to torture as a war crime, Russia committed torture as a crime against humanity. The commission’s findings highlight the grave human rights violations and atrocities committed by Russian authorities against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war.
