By Olha Chepil | 2024-03-25

KYIV -- The United Nations (UN) is investigating the systematic nature of the torture, brutalization and rape of prisoners by Russian troops in Ukraine, according to a recent report.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, which the UN Human Rights Council created, on March 15 published a new report that sets out findings on Russia's crimes.

The investigators' latest report grew out of interviews with more than 800 people during 16 separate trips to Ukraine, they said.

The report for the first time mentions the hierarchical nature of the Russian forces that are involved in committing torture.

When he presented the report, Erik Møse, the chair of the UN commission, said that the investigators were collecting information on the systematic nature of the policy of torture in particular.

"Further investigations are required to determine whether some of the situations identified may constitute crimes against humanity," Møse told journalists in Geneva on March 15.

The designation would mean that not only the direct perpetrators but also the masterminds behind these crimes -- including Russia's top military and political leadership -- could be prosecuted at the international level.

"We're seeing that the UN commission is getting closer and closer to recognizing that this is a policy coming from the highest level and the Russian leadership. It's an intentional, calculated policy to destroy the Ukrainians," Olha Reshetylova, director of the Kyiv-based Media Initiative for Human Rights, told Kontur.

"This is exactly what we're trying to prove, that this is systematic persecution, a systematic Russian policy," she said.

The investigators uncovered similar torture methods in different detention facilities inside Russia -- evidence of the systematic torture of prisoners of war, according to Reshetylova.

"When it started its work, the UN said that it was documenting these kinds of incidents, then it started talking about the large scale of these incidents, while now in this report it's talking about both the large scale and the systematic nature of the Russians' conduct," she said.

Russian brutality

Reshetylova's organization, in cooperation with the UN experts, collected dozens of testimonials from Ukrainian soldiers, who gave accounts of sexual assault and torture through starvation.

Most of the men recalled that they were willing to die rather than endure the abuse, she said.

The majority of the victims of the abuse are men between the ages of 21 and 58, the UN found.

The UN report recounts an interview with one Ukrainian soldier who describes his experience in correctional facility no. 1 in Donskoy, Russia.

He said that when he was in solitary confinement, he was beaten on his buttocks till they bled. His jailers tortured him with electrical shocks, knocked out some of his teeth and beat him till he could no longer feel his feet or stand. He said that he had used part of his uniform to attempt suicide in his cell.

He had been hospitalized 36 times between his freeing and January 2024.

"We have dozens or even hundreds of testimonials like that one. Everyone who returns from captivity tells such horrifying stories that even we, as a media initiative, don't share them publicly. The public isn't yet ready to hear about everything that's going on there," Reshetylova said.

The biggest problem is that Russia is not providing any information on the location or detention of prisoners of war or civilians, which means that these people simply do not exist for the world, she said.

"How many of them are there, what are their names, where are they being held? Russia isn't sharing any of that. And since no one knows, the Russians can do anything they want with them. They could kill them. And the longer this goes on, the more corpses return from captivity," she added.

The UN report also documents sexual assaults of women.

"There is evidence that women have been raped. Women spoke a lot about the debasements they suffered when they were in captivity," Iryna Nykorak, founder of the NGO Arm Women Now and a member of the Ukrainian parliament, told Kontur.

"They can't yet disclose all the details because thousands of women are still being held. I'm sure that Russia will bear responsibility for this appalling page in its history," Nykorak said.

The siege of Mariupol

In addition to the prisoners of war, as part of its inquiry the UN commission interviewed witnesses to the Russian siege of Mariupol.

Russian forces started attacking the city on February 24, 2022. It fell in May 2022.

Russia has repeatedly violated international humanitarian law in Mariupol, the commission found.

"Russia has failed to communicate with the UN commission for two years -- it is refusing to be in contact, and it is not providing any information even though experts want to get a complete picture of what's happening in the occupied territories such as Mariupol," Kateryna Rashevska, a lawyer for the Regional Center for Human Rights, told Kontur.

The conclusions on Mariupol made in the report are still a work in progress, said Rashevska, who has personally communicated with experts from the UN commission.

The documented atrocities may constitute crimes against humanity, she added.

"A significant portion of the report focuses on genocide. Based on my own experience talking to the experts, I can say that they're continuing their investigation, and they see definite signs of incitement to commit genocide. The commission has an entire division that is working and gathering evidence," Rashevska said.