More than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians detained by Russia during its war in Ukraine remain “deprived of their liberty” with many being held incommunicado and on grounds that violate international law, United Nations estimates.
Claudia Fuentes Julio, the UN assistant secretary-general for human rights, said Russia continues to subject Ukrainian civilian detainees and prisoners of war to “widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment”, including sexual violence, reports AP.
Julio made the remarks at an informal UN Security Council meeting convened by Latvia and the United Kingdom on Monday to highlight the plight of civilians and soldiers detained during Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Security Council, where Russia holds permanent-member status, heard the accounts as Russia and Ukraine continued to escalate attacks in the four-year conflict.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, UN human rights staff have interviewed 910 Ukrainian prisoners of war and 403 civilian detainees after their release, Julio said. However, the UN has been unable to access detention facilities in Russia. Its estimate of those still being held does not specify how many are adults or children.
More than 95 per cent of Ukrainian prisoners of war and 85 per cent of civilian detainees interviewed by the UN reported torture or ill-treatment, often on repeated occasions, Julio said.
The detainees also described sexual attacks and inhumane detention conditions, including inadequate food and medical care.
The Geneva-based human rights office “has documented the execution of 129 Ukrainian prisoners of war at the beginning of their captivity, and the deaths of 48 Ukrainian prisoners of war in custody, resulting from torture, denial of medical care, or other inhumane conditions of detention,” Julio said.
Former detainees recount experiences
The Security Council also heard accounts from Crimean Tatar human rights activist Leniie Umerova and Khuan Leyva Garsiya, a Ukrainian soldier who was among the hundreds of Ukrainian troops who held out for months at the Azovstal steel plant in the besieged city of Mariupol before surrendering to Russian forces in May 2022.
Umerova described herself as a “political prisoner” of Russia for almost two years.
Garsiya, who was born in Mariupol to a Ukrainian mother and Cuban father, spent 1,183 days as a prisoner of war. He said he weighed 55 kilograms (120 pounds) when he was released and showed the council a photograph of his emaciated body.
He said Russian forces tortured, beat and humiliated him more severely than other prisoners because they suspected him of being a foreign mercenary due to his Cuban ancestry or an American spy because he attended college in the United States.
“Russians were outraged that someone with a connection to Cuba, whom they consider an ally, would fight against their occupation army,” said Garsiya, who remains in the Ukrainian military.
He said Russian forces sought to mentally break prisoners and force them to confess to fabricated crimes through torture, including freezing, beatings, electrocution and sexual abuse.
“Two of my friends were beaten to death in detention centers in the Donetsk region,” Garsiya said. “Two of my friends died because of the conditions they were put in in Russian prisons and were returned in plastic bags to the homeland.”
Umerova said her detention began when she attempted to enter Russia from Georgia to visit her seriously ill father in Crimea, which is part of Ukraine but has been occupied by Russia since 2014.
She said authorities detained her on “fabricated charges”. Unlike many other detainees, however, she was able to contact a lawyer. In her third month of detention, she said, her lawyer secured her release through a court order.
“But as soon as the prison gates opened, a bag was put over my head and I was taken away again.”
Umerova said authorities moved her between seven different facilities within six months, describing the experience as “a carousel of repression.”
She said her experience formed part of a system Russia uses to unlawfully detain, isolate and torture civilians while fabricating charges against them. She named half a dozen women currently held in Russian prisons and said at least 84 women had faced criminal prosecution.
UN reports abuses of Russian detainees
UN human rights experts also interviewed 816 Russians and 57 third-country national prisoners of war from more than 45 countries who had served in the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, Julio said.
Around half reported torture or ill-treatment, mainly during the early stages of captivity and interrogation by Ukrainian forces.
However, UN monitors found that after the prisoners reached Ukrainian detention facilities, “the conditions generally comply with international humanitarian law and have improved since 2022.”
Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Maria Zabolotskaya told the council that Russian armed forces were complying with international humanitarian law, including rules governing the treatment of prisoners.
She claimed Russian prisoners held in Ukraine had faced “torture and degradation, and moral and physical abuse.”
Zabolotskaya described the Security Council meeting as part of “a disinformation campaign against Russia,” funded by NATO countries involved in the Ukraine conflict.
The aim, she said, “is to derail efforts towards a peace settlement and to justify strikes on the territory of Russia and against civilians.”
Ukraine’s Deputy UN Ambassador Volodymyr Pavlichenko said he was struck by Russia’s unwillingness during Monday’s meeting to discuss the return of prisoners of war “including their POWs” as well as all civilian detainees, including abducted children.
