In a summary of their latest findings, a team of international experts revealed that a significant number of prisoners held in makeshift detention centres in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine have been subjected to torture and sexual violation. The Mobile Justice Team, established by the international humanitarian law firm Global Rights Compliance, has been collaborating with Ukrainian war crimes prosecutors in the Kherson region since it was reclaimed in November after more than eight months under Russian control.
Ukrainian authorities are currently reviewing over 97,000 reports of war crimes and have filed charges against 220 suspects in domestic courts. Those who were involved in high-level crimes could potentially face trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which has already sought the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, the Kremlin continues to deny allegations of war crimes in Ukraine, stating that the actions were part of a “special military operation” aiming to ‘de-Nazify’ its neighbor and safeguard Russia.
The Mobile Justice Team’s latest report, funded by Britain, the European Union, and the United States, studied 320 cases and witness accounts from 35 locations in the Kherson region. Among these cases, “43% explicitly mentioned practices of torture in the detention centres, citing sexual violence as a common tactic imposed on them by Russian guards,” the report stated.
In June, Ukrainian prosecutors initiated legal proceedings regarding the alleged deportation of dozens of orphans from Kherson. They charged a Russian politician and two suspected Ukrainian collaborators with war crimes, but have not provided an immediate response to the recent findings on torture.
Earlier this year, Reuters reported on the scale of alleged torture in Kherson. Survivors shared stories of tactics such as electric shocks and suffocation. However, the Kremlin and Russia’s defense ministry did not respond to Reuters’ inquiries about these allegations.
Anna Mykytenko, a senior legal adviser at Global Rights Compliance, remarked, “The true scale of Russia’s war crimes remains unknown,” regarding the latest findings on torture. “But what we can say for certain is that the psychological consequences of these cruel crimes on Ukrainian people will be engrained in their minds for years to come.”
The team’s report also highlighted that detainees most likely to experience torture were military personnel, as well as law enforcement personnel, volunteers, activists, community leaders, medical workers, and teachers. The commonly employed torture techniques included suffocation, waterboarding, severe beatings, and threats of rape.
It is important to note that Reuters was unable to independently verify the allegations. British Barrister Wayne Jordash, who led the team, stated that the evidence from the liberated detention centers “suggests that Putin’s plan to extinguish Ukrainian identity includes a range of crimes evocative of genocide.”
Credit: The Star : News Feed
