UN Commission Reports Systematic Torture and Atrocities by Russian Forces in Ukraine

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva was informed by Erik Möse, the head of the UN independent international commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, that the Russian army extensively and systematically employed torture in the territories it occupied, resulting in some Ukrainian victims losing their lives.

Focus on the Kherson and Zaporizhia Regions

The commission primarily focused its investigations on violations of personal integrity in areas under prolonged Russian occupation, specifically the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. Möse emphasized that the commission had gathered additional evidence pointing to the widespread and systematic use of torture by Russian armed forces in the territories under their control.

The primary targets of these investigations were individuals accused of being informants for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In certain instances, the level of brutality in these torture sessions was so extreme that it led to the fatalities of the victims. Möse reiterated that the commission was actively identifying and documenting such locations to support its findings, which indicated extensive use of torture under Russian occupation.

Moreover, Möse revealed that the commission uncovered cases of Russian soldiers committing sexual assaults and rapes against women ranging in age from 19 to 83 in the occupied territories. These heinous acts were often accompanied by threats of prosecution or other violations, and family members were sometimes forced to witness these acts in adjacent rooms.

Additionally, the Commission expressed concerns about allegations of genocide in Ukraine. Some rhetoric disseminated in Russian state and other media outlets may potentially amount to incitement to genocide. The Commission is continuing its investigations into these matters.

It's worth noting that Möse had previously stated that the commission lacked sufficient evidence to legally classify the actions as meeting the criteria outlined in the Genocide Convention.

UN Commission's Ongoing Work to Document Atrocities

In terms of the situation in Ukraine, as of August 3 this year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine had registered information on 232,131 individuals in the "War Criminal" information subsystem, with 197,857 of them being Russian military personnel. The National Police of Ukraine initiated over 87,000 criminal proceedings related to crimes committed by Russian army soldiers in Ukraine, according to Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs, Ihor Klymenko. Furthermore, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Andriy Kostin, announced that Ukrainian courts had convicted 53 Russian soldiers of war crimes as of July 15.