After two years of invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities continue to commit violations of international law that constitute war crimes, including attacks on civilian areas, widespread use of torture against prisoners, sexual violence, but also the theft of countless cultural property. , a UN report denounces this Friday.
The new document from the Independent International Commission for Ukraine, which will be presented next week to the UN Human Rights Council, concludes that Russian forces routinely ignore the effects of their attacks on civilian areas, or use "systematically and "extended form" of torture.
"We are concerned about the scale, duration and severity of the human rights violations and crimes that we have investigated, and their impact on victims and affected communities," summarized Norwegian expert Erik Mose, president of the UN, when presenting the report at a press conference. the Commission.
Regarding torture, the commission completed by the Colombian Pablo de Greiff and the Indian Vrinda Grover has identified torture of Ukrainian prisoners in at least four provinces of Ukraine and three of Russia, where prisoners of war were detained between 9 and 15 months and They often suffered abuse throughout that period.
In the Russian Federation, torture was routinely carried out by members of the Special Purpose Units, the so-called "spetsnaz", in interrogations often led by employees of the Federal Security Service FSB, heir to the Soviet KGB.
In many detention centers, prisoners were already received with beatings and electroshocks while being told "welcome to hell"; The torture continued for months, in any part of the detention center, sometimes accompanied by sexual abuse, according to the report.
Detention conditions were inhumane, and many former prisoners told the commission that they had to resort to feeding themselves worms, soap, paper or dog food.
"New evidence reinforces the Commission's previous conclusions that torture used by Russian authorities in Ukraine and the Russian Federation is widespread and systematic," the report says. “The victims' stories reveal brutal and unforgiving treatment, inflicting intense pain and suffering during prolonged detention, with blatant disregard for human dignity,” the researchers write.
The report details the fate of a Ukrainian soldier who was arrested and tortured by Russian authorities in several detention centers. He recounted "his experience of him in the penal colony in the city of Donskoy, in the Tula region, where he was repeatedly tortured and left with broken bones and teeth and gangrene in an injured foot."
"I lost all hope and all the will to live," the soldier said, adding that he tried to commit suicide but the attackers beat him again. After his release, "the soldier was hospitalized 36 times," the investigators explain.
The nature, patterns and methods used for torture "suggest that there is a more clearly defined policy," said one of the commissioners, Vrinda Grover.
The report also documents "rape and other forms of sexual violence inflicted on women in circumstances amounting to torture" and the investigation found "additional evidence of the illegal transfer of children to areas under Russian control" such as the Crimean peninsula.
In the section on indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, the report recalls that at least 10,582 civilians have died and 19,875 were injured in more than two years of invasion, many of them due to the impact of aerial and artillery bombardments.
The report especially remembers the siege of Mariupol, between February 24 and May 20, 2022, where the attacks damaged 15,555 structures and Ukrainian authorities estimate that thousands of civilians died.
The siege included tank attacks on hospitals, says the report, which also refers to more recent cases, such as the attack on a cafe in Hroza, Kharkiv province, which left 36 women, 22 men and a child dead on October 5. of 2022.
On December 29 of last year, a wave of Russian attacks against eight Ukrainian cities caused the death of more than fifty people, and the following day a similar offensive against the Russian city of Belgorod caused the death of 25 people.
For the first time, the researchers also examined the fate of cultural property and archives in the occupied territories, specifically the cities of Jerson and Odessa. “Russian authorities transferred cultural objects from the Jerson Regional Art Museum and provincial archives” to Crimea, annexed in 2014 by Moscow.
“According to estimates by the staff of both institutions, more than 10,000 objects from the museum and 70% of the documents from the main building of the State Archives have been removed,” the report highlights. Local authorities mentioned the need to protect these objects from destruction.
For investigators, the authorities committed a war crime by seizing Ukrainian assets, in particular through a law adopted in March 2023 that stipulates that these confiscated assets and files now belong to Russia.
As for Odessa, the report details the Russian bombings at the end of July 2023 that affected cultural, religious or historical buildings, "all located in the historic center" of the city, including the Transfiguration Cathedral. "These attacks affect cultural property that enjoys special protection under international humanitarian law," the report states.
The document speaks to a lesser extent of abuses by Ukraine in the conflict, but does cite human rights violations against detainees on suspicion of collaboration with the Russian occupation.
