UNHRC says Russian POW tortured in Ukraine between Dec-Feb
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Between December 2023 and February 2024, OHCHR staff visited 44 Russian prisoners of war who "provided credible accounts of torture or ill-treatment.
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Russian soldiers patrol a destroyed part of the Illich Iron and Steel Works Metallurgical Plant in Mariupol on May 18, 2022 (AP)
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that Russian prisoners of war were tortured in Ukraine between December 2023 and February 2024.
Between December 2023 and February 2024, OHCHR staff visited 44 Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Vinnytsia, and Zaporizhia areas.
According to the Tuesday report, the OHCHR stated that the POW "provided credible accounts of torture or ill-treatment in transit places after their immediate evacuation from the battlefield."
The OHCHR stated that Ukrainian authorities do not properly punish those guilty of torture and brutality against civilians and prisoners of war.
The report detailed that the OHCHR documented arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and the use of torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence, by Ukrainian authorities during the detention of conflict-related civilian detainees and Russian POWs, as well as the summary execution of at least 25 Russian servicemen hors de combat (all in 2022 and early 2023)."
Furthermore, the report indicates that "Ukrainian authorities have launched at least five criminal investigations into allegations of violations committed by their own security forces, involving 22 victims," which the OHCHR believes indicates there has been little progress in the investigation and punishment of such abuses.
Read more: Russian plane with 65 Ukrainian POWs on board crashes in Belgorod
Russia slams international orgs for silence over Ukraine POW execution
The Ukrainian armed forces executed in a video that was circulated on social media last year a Russian prisoner of war, with further reports suggesting that a second was executed off camera.
The execution of Russian prisoners of war is down to Ukraine's Western patrons and the silence of international organizations is shameful, the Russian Foreign Ministry said at the time.
According to the ministry, Moscow repeatedly attracted the attention of the international community and relevant organizations to the war crimes being committed by Kiev's forces, stressing that the Ukrainian authorities had not observed international humanitarian law.
"The next execution of Russian prisoners of war is largely down to the Western patrons of Kiev," the ministry said in a statement.
The West silencing such crimes is making all killings of the sorts possible, Moscow added.
"A shameful fact is the silence of relevant international organizations that have traded professionalism and objectivity for the desire to curry favor with the United States and other Western countries," the statement said.
The ministry noted that Russia's Investigative Committee had already said it began investigating new video evidence of Kiev's forces committing war crimes, emphasizing that they would not go unpunished.
Kiev's forces have long been facing accusations from Moscow of committing war crimes against Russian and allied troops, including the execution and torture of prisoners of war.
Russian Commissioner for Human Rights, Ombudswoman Tatiana Moskalkova, urged last January her Ukrainian counterpart, the United Nations, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to demand that Ukraine stop using torture against prisoners of war.
