By Sehubo Festus
Russia tortured Ukrainian victims to death, according to the UN. On Monday, members of a United Nations-mandated investigation said Russian occupiers forced families to watch as they raped women next door and tortured their Ukrainian victims to death.
According to Reuters, this is featured in the UN investigation body’s most recent findings from the field.
Erik Mse, chair of the Ukraine Commission of Inquiry, informed the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva that his team had “collected additional evidence indicating that the use of torture by Russian armed forces in areas under their control has been widespread and systematic. In some cases, torture was inflicted with such brutality that it caused the death of the victim.”
“Russian soldiers raped and committed sexual violence against women of ages ranging from 19 to 83 years” in occupied parts of Kherson province. Frequently, the family was kept next door and forced to hear the violations,” he added.
However, Russia has denied committing atrocities or targeting people in Ukraine.
Møse stated that the commission’s attempts to contact Russia had gone unanswered.
Moscow was given an opportunity to respond to the allegations at the council hearing but no Russian representative attended. Russia’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Asked at a later press briefing about the number of torture cases resulting in death, commission member Pablo de Greiff said it was impossible to know due to restricted access, but that it was a “fairly large number and…it comes from very different regions across the country, close and far from the lines of battle.”
In August and September, Møse’s commission visited parts of Ukraine formerly held by Russian forces such as in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. It found that torture was committed mainly in detention centers operated by the Russian authorities and chiefly against people accused of being Ukrainian informants.
The commission had previously said that violations committed by Russian forces in Ukraine, including the use of torture, may constitute crimes against humanity.
The UN body also found a “few cases” of violations committed by Ukrainian forces, Møse said, saying they were related to instances of indiscriminate attacks and ill-treatment of Russian detainees. Kyiv has previously said it checks all information regarding the treatment of prisoners of war and will investigate any violations and take appropriate legal action.
The commission was mandated by the council in March 2022 to investigate abuses in Ukraine since the war began and has visited multiple times and conducted hundreds of interviews. Sometimes evidence gathered by U.N.-mandated probes is used for national and international trials, including war crimes cases.