Former Ukrainian detainees and Ukrainian officers accused Russia on Monday of systematically torturing prisoners of conflict and civilian detainees, holding captives incommunicado and subjecting them to beatings, electrical shocks and sexual abuse, with hundreds nonetheless in captivity.
Russia rejected the allegations made at an off-the-cuff UN Safety Council assembly, with its Deputy UN Consultant Maria Zabolotskaya calling it “a disinformation marketing campaign” and alleging that Russian prisoners in Ukraine have been subjected to “torture and degradation and ethical and bodily abuse.”
Khuan Alberto Levya Garsiya, nonetheless an lively member of the Ukrainian navy, mentioned his Russian captors subjected him to each possible type of torture throughout 1,183 days in captivity.
“Sure … I used to be tortured,” he instructed reporters after the UN assembly. “Something you possibly can consider that may be carried out hurtful, humiliating to a person, unwillingly. Something that involves your thoughts, not solely verbal, bodily abuse, each day beatings, electrocution, extreme, extreme workout routines in freezing chilly when it is minus levels … sexual abuse. All the pieces that may be utilized to an individual into making an individual break mentally. It was all utilized to me and most of my comrades.”
Garsiya mentioned he was fortunate to outlive however two of his associates have been crushed to loss of life in detention facilities within the Donetsk area. Prisoners have been held in “overcrowded barracks with out enough situations,” the place “virtually all POWs have been in poor health with dysentery” and lots of have been ravenous, he instructed the UN assembly.
A Ukrainian with a Cuban father, he mentioned guards focused him significantly due to his Latino title, accusing him of being “a mercenary and an American spy.”
Crimean Tatar activist Leniie Umerova, launched in a prisoner trade in 2024, mentioned she was detained whereas attempting to go to her significantly in poor health father in Crimea.
She described being moved via “seven detention amenities” in what she referred to as “a carousel of repression” and accused Russia of utilizing torture towards Ukrainians in captivity.
Oleg Gushin of the Ukrainian authorities’s Coordination Headquarters for the Remedy of Prisoners of Warfare mentioned Ukrainian prisoners have been “killed and tortured” in detention.
He mentioned Kyiv had recognized “greater than 300 locations of detention” in Russia and occupied Ukrainian territory and that whereas greater than 9,000 Ukrainians had been returned via exchanges, “hundreds” remained in Russian captivity.
Ukraine’s Cost d’Affaires Volodymyr Pavlichenko referred to as for larger worldwide stress and accountability for Russia’s remedy of prisoners.
“WIDESPREAD AND SYSTEMATIC”
UN Assistant Secretary-Basic for Human Rights Claudia Fuentes Julio mentioned UN monitoring confirmed that “widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of conflict and civilian detainees by the Russian Federation authorities continues,” together with sexual violence.
Since February 2022, the UN Workplace of the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights had documented the execution of 129 Ukrainian prisoners of conflict originally of their captivity and the deaths of 48 in custody, ensuing from torture, denial of medical care, or different inhumane situations of detention, she mentioned.
She mentioned greater than 95% of Ukrainian prisoners of conflict interviewed reported experiencing torture or ill-treatment.
She mentioned greater than half additionally reported sexual violence, together with “rape, gang rape, beating whereas nude, beatings to the genitals, electrical shocks to the genitals and nipples, and degrading remedy of a sexualized nature.”
She mentioned the UN had obtained “constant accounts of extreme beatings with objects resembling batons, heavy belts, and wooden, electrical shocks, canine assaults, mock executions, and different types of torture.”
Fuentes Julio mentioned the OHCHR had additionally documented torture and ill-treatment of Russian and third-country nationwide prisoners of conflict held by Ukraine, however “on a essentially totally different scale.”
She mentioned about half of Russian and third-country prisoners interviewed reported abuse throughout preliminary levels of captivity.
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
