According to the UN, Russian Military Tortured and Killed Citizens in Ukraine

(CTN News) –  On Tuesday, the UN human rights office claimed that the Russian military tortured citizens seized in connection with their war on Ukraine, summarily killing more than 70 of them.

It interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses for a study showing over 900 examples of civilians, including children and the elderly, being arbitrarily arrested in the conflict, most of whom were detained by Russia.

According to the head of the UN human rights office in Ukraine, most interviewees indicated they were tortured and, in some cases, sexually abused while detained by Russian forces.

The 36-page report came as Beth Van Schaack, the US ambassador-at-large for Global Criminal Justice, said Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, admitted that any provocative actions by Ukraine did not justify the original invasion.

She also believes Putin would not travel to South Africa for the BRICS meeting in August if there were a 10% chance that an independent South African judge would order his arrest.

“He is reckless with the Russian state’s resources, but not with his own skin,” she explained. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest order for Putin concerning the repatriation of Ukrainian minors to Russia. She claimed that South Africa was obligated to enforce the warrant.

The UN report will be handed over to the Ukrainian prosecutor general and the International Criminal Court as it gathers evidence against individual Russians accused of war crimes during Ukraine’s incursion.

The report spans 15 months, beginning with the Russian invasion and ending in May 2023. It also documents 75 instances of arbitrary detention by Ukrainian security personnel, with many resulting in enforced disappearances.

It recorded 864 incidents of arbitrary detention by Russia – 763 men, 94 women, and seven children – many of which amounted to enforced disappearances.

According to Matilda Bogner, the chief of the UN human rights office in Ukraine, “torture was used to force victims to confess to helping Ukrainian armed forces, compel them to cooperate with the occupying authorities, or intimidate those with pro-Ukrainian views.”

According to Bogner, more than half of those held by Ukrainian forces reported being tortured or mistreated, mainly during interrogation or immediately after detention.

She added that with the exception of 87 Russian sailors, Ukraine provided UN investigators with “unimpeded confidential access” to detainees in official detention facilities.

“The Russian Federation did not grant us such access, despite our requests,” Bogner stated.

The UN has previously determined that Russia summarily executed Ukrainian detainees, but this is the first time civilians have been executed. It documents 77 examples of civilian executions and discovers that others have been kept in horrible conditions.

While Ukraine has begun criminal investigations into Russian forces for the arrest of civilians, resulting in 23 convictions, the UN human rights office stated that it is unaware of any investigations into Ukraine’s forces for comparable crimes.

According to Bogner, Ukrainian rules on detention for national security grounds “appears to go beyond what is permissible under international law, even during a state of emergency, and have facilitated arbitrary detention.”

She stated that the office has documented 75 incidents of arbitrary imprisonment by Ukrainian security personnel, “the majority of whom were suspected of conflict-related offences.”

In a briefing, Van Schaack stated that tens of thousands of individual charges of war crimes were being investigated by skilled investigators both inside and outside Ukraine.

She claimed that Prigozhin’s words questioning the conflict’s foundation last week contradicted the stated Russian reason for the war. She predicted that his words would be taken into account and would significantly impact any prosecution of Putin for the crime of aggression.

“It’s worth noting that he stated quite openly that this war is based on false pretences, that Ukraine and Nato had no intention of attacking Russia, and that this is very much a war of Russia’s own making,” Van Schaack added.

In May, the US announced its support for a special tribunal to try the crime of aggression, but only if it is situated in Ukraine and had international support. Ukraine had urged establishing an international court by the UN General Assembly, which the US rejected on legal and political grounds.

Van Schaack believes Putin will be difficult to prosecute as long as he is president of Russia. However, she continued, “his world is shrinking fast,” and many other international leaders who did not expect to appear in court did.

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