By AFP | 2025-08-22

Russia is using "sexual torture" against civilians as part of a "deliberate and systematic policy" of intimidation in areas of Ukraine seized in Moscow's invasion, United Nations (UN) experts said Thursday.

The experts, who are mandated by the Human Rights Council but do not speak on behalf of the UN, said they had sent Russia a dossier detailing 10 cases of Ukrainian civilians tortured while under Russian occupation.

All were administered "repeated electric shocks, including to the genitals" by the Russians, who also beat, kicked, blindfolded and acted out mock drownings and executions on their captives, the experts' statement said.

"These separate allegations, capturing the experiences of four women and six men, are truly grisly," said Alice Jill Edwards, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Torture, warning that they were "only a small snapshot of a wider, well-documented pattern."

"These were all highly-sexualized assaults which included rapes, threats of rape and other depraved conduct," Edwards said.

"It is becoming clearer that the Russian Federation's deliberate and systematic policy of torture in Ukraine involves sexualized torture and other sexualized cruelty, including against the civilian population," the rapporteur added.

"The Russian Federation is using torture to intimidate, instill fear and control civilians in occupied territory of Ukraine."

The experts urged the Russian government to explain both the specific allegations detailed in the dossier and what it was doing to prevent sexual torture within the ranks.

One of the female victims remains detained inside Russia, the experts added, calling for her immediate release.

History of abuse

In July, a top European court ruled Russia committed a string of human rights violations in Ukraine. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), part of the Council of Europe rights body, is tasked with implementing the European human rights convention in signatory countries.

The largely symbolic ruling came after the Council of Europe excluded Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Moscow dropped out of the European rights convention in September that year.

The ECHR however still handles cases against Russia that were brought before that date.

A panel of 17 judges found Russia violated the convention through "extrajudicial killing of civilians and Ukrainian military personnel" outside of combat, "torture," "forced labor," "unlawful and arbitrary detention of civilians," as well as looting.

The judges also ruled that Russia had violated the European rights convention through "the transfer to Russia and, in many cases, the adoption there of Ukrainian children."

The court said Russia "must without delay release or safely return all persons who were deprived of liberty on Ukrainian territory under occupation by the Russian and Russian-controlled forces."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at the time that Russia had no intention of complying with the decision of the court, whose rulings it considered to be "null and void."