Russians are brutally torturing captured Ukrainian soldiers - UN report
Ukrainian prisoners of war are subjected to brutal torture, including electric shocks, threats of rape, and denial of medical aid. The UN’s independent international commission investigating violations in Ukraine found new evidence of this.
As Censor.NET informs concerning Interfax-Ukraine, this is stated in the new report of the UN Commission.
The UN's independent International Commission of Inquiry into violations in Ukraine has found new evidence that the Russian authorities have committed violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law and corresponding war crimes.
The report focuses on the torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war and describes cases of horrific treatment of them in several places of detention in the Russian Federation. Victims' statements reveal ill-treatment that causes severe pain and suffering to POWs during their prolonged detention, all of which is done with flagrant disregard for human dignity and results in long-term physical and mental trauma.
The report notes that one Ukrainian serviceman, who was taken into custody and tortured by the Russian authorities in several places of detention, spoke about his experiences in a correctional colony in the city of Donsky, Tula Region. He was repeatedly tortured there and left to fend for himself - with broken bones, knocked-out teeth, and gangrene on his injured leg.
Testimony of liberated Ukrainian prisoners of war
"I lost all hope and will to live," said the serviceman and added that he tried to kill himself, but the criminals prevented him and subjected him to further beatings. After liberation, the serviceman was hospitalized 36 times.
The commission reports that in most institutions prisoners of war were subjected to a brutal "reception" procedure with beatings and electric shocks. The torture took place during interrogations when prisoners were questioned about the Ukrainian armed forces and their military units.
According to the prisoners, prisoners of war captured in Mariupol or from western Ukraine were particularly ill-treated; to those who did not speak Russian; and during periods when the Russian armed forces lost control over areas in Ukraine.
The methods of torture that were periodically used included severe and repeated beatings with different instruments on different parts of the body.
The report also details cases of sexual torture and threats of rape against male prisoners of war. Thus, former male prisoners reported threats of rape, unwanted touching during invasive personal examinations, and genital torture.
The report highlights that conditions of detention were inhumane or degrading in several of the detention facilities investigated. The victims, for the most part, were either denied medical care or provided it inadequately.
"Victims reported excruciating hunger pangs and began eating worms, soap, paper, and scraps of dog food, resulting in a dramatic drop in weight.
In some places of detention, access to showers and toilets was limited, while in others only a hole in the floor served as a toilet," the report said.
As a result of the torture, former prisoners of war reported difficulties with breathing, sleeping, and walking; about broken bones and knocked out teeth; about bleeding, swelling, infection, or gangrene of the limbs; about poor eyesight and injured internal organs.
As noted in the UN commission, interviews with prisoners of war, as well as with persons who declared themselves to be former members of a special forces unit operating under the FSVP and a former Russian soldier, show that the treatment of prisoners of war was apparently encouraged from above or at least allowed from above an obvious sense of impunity.
In addition, the new evidence confirms the Commission's previous findings that the torture of civilians by the Russian authorities in Ukraine and the Russian Federation was widespread and systematic.
