UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine confirmed that torture of Ukrainians is a crime against humanity

The torture of Ukrainian military and civilian prisoners is a coordinated state policy of Russia and amounts to a crime against humanity. This is stated in the new report of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Violations in Ukraine, presented to the General Assembly on October 29, 2024.

“Based on the evidence, it can be concluded that the Russian authorities acted within the framework of a coordinated state policy of torture against Ukrainian civilians and POWs, and thus committed a crime against humanity,” said Commission Chairman Erik Møse.

The documented cases, as noted in the report, show that the Russian authorities involved personnel who acted in a coordinated manner, among whom responsibilities were clearly divided. Thus, the evidence collected by the commission points to the involvement of officials of the Federal Penitentiary Service and the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, as well as officers of the Russian Armed Forces, in the torture of Ukrainians.

The Commission also concluded that the documented cases demonstrate that the Russian authorities committed sexual violence as a form of torture during detention, which constitutes torture.

Earlier, the Human Rights Centre ZMINA, the World Organisation Against Torture and the Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR) analysed documented cases of torture and other ill-treatment of Ukrainian civilians in the territories of Ukraine occupied by the Russian military in February-March 2022 and liberated later that year. The analysis showed that these violations were widespread, systematic and may constitute crimes against humanity for the persecution of a political group.

“The fact that the commission confirmed that the torture of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war is not the so-called excesses of the perpetrators, but part of a planned policy, is extremely important in the context of bringing Russia’s top political and military leadership to justice. At the same time, my colleagues and I see an even broader picture, namely the crime against humanity of ‘persecution’ committed by the RF through arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment, sexual violence and a number of other crimes. In our opinion, it is the persecution that should be investigated by international mechanisms, in particular the ICC,” said Yelyzaveta Sokurenko, Head of the War Crimes Documentation Department at the Human Rights Centre ZMINA.

In early October, during an event at the OSCE Warsaw Human Dimension Conference, the Media Initiative for Human Rights, the Human Rights Centre ZMINA and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) called for an investigation into the torture and persecution of Ukrainians under occupation as a crime against humanity.