Russian prisoners of war were tortured in Ukraine between December 2023 and February 2024, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a report.
OHCHR staff visited 44 Russian POWs in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Lviv, Mykolayiv, Sumy, Vinnitsa and Zaporizhzhya regions of Ukraine. They made no allegations of torture, but “provided credible reports of torture or ill-treatment at transit points after their evacuation from the battlefield,” the report said. It refers to the period from December 2023 to February 2024.
Specifically, eight people said they were held in the basements of private buildings, probably in the Kharkiv region. Thirteen prisoners of war complained of beatings with wooden sticks during interrogations, as well as electrocution. In addition, Ukrainians staged executions and in two cases threatened Russian soldiers with sexual violence.
The OHCHR clarified that the Ukrainian government did not sufficiently prosecute perpetrators of violence against civilians and prisoners of war. The agency documented arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence, against civilians associated with the conflict, as well as Russian soldiers who were captured. They also documented the executions of at least 25 Russian soldiers between 2022 and 2023. Despite the fact that the Kiev authorities have opened at least five criminal cases on violations against 22 people, there is no progress in the investigation, concluded the UN.
We shall remind you that earlier the deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Dmitriy Medvedev, said that the Russian special military operation pursues the goals of “ousting the Kiev authorities”, which professes “the ideology of neo-Nazism”, and complete disarmament of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.