Ukrainian prisoners of war are handed mobile phones to call home as they arrive back on Ukrainian territory as part of a POW swap on New Year’s Eve 2022. The U.N warned Wednesday that Ukrainian POWs were being executed by their Russian captors in ever higher numbers amid ongoing human rights and abuses and inhuman treatment. File Photo by Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Office /UPI | License Photo
Ukrainian prisoners of war are being executed by their Russian captors in ever higher numbers amid ongoing human rights abuses and inhuman treatment, United Nations monitors said.
A record 32 Ukrainian POWs were executed in 12 separate incidents in the three months through February amid widespread torture and ill-treatment, deaths in custody, incommunicado detention, enforced disappearances, and dire conditions of detention, the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in a news release on its latest findings published Tuesday. Advertisement
The U.N. Office of the Human Rights High Commissioner’s 28-page “Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine” from December through February is based on the testimony of 60 recently released Ukrainian POWs.
“Almost every single one of the Ukrainian POWs we interviewed described how Russian servicepersons or officials tortured them during their captivity, using repeated beatings, electric shocks, threats of execution, prolonged stress positions and mock execution. Over half of them were subjected to sexual violence,” said HRMMU head Danielle Bell. Advertisement
“Most POWs also recounted the anguish of not being allowed to communicate with their families, and being deprived of adequate food and medical attention.”
The monitors recorded credible accounts of the execution of at least 32 Ukrainian POWs during the three months Dec.1 to Feb. 29 — sharply higher than in any previous monitoring period –three of which they said they had verified independently.
The report also details violence committed against Ukrainian civilians in areas occupied by Russia by the military and civil authorities including killings and arbitrary detention, as well as and crackdowns on free speech.
Russian POWs held by Ukraine were also interviewed for the report. Accounts provided by the 44 POWs found that while torture was not used at recognized internment camps, several detailed how they had been tortured and ill-treated in transit facilities after they had been taken from the theater of combat.
The report also criticizes Kyiv for contravening International Humanitarian Law by continuing to prosecute and convict people for actions they cannot lawfully avoid carrying out under laws imposed by the Russian occupation.
A specific case highlighted in the report pertained to the death in custody of a person initially arrested for “justifying the armed attack by the Russian Federation against Ukraine.” Advertisement
He had complained that penal authorities failed to adequately respond to his worsening health, allegations that were the subject of an investigation by Ukrainian authorities.
It also cited mob attacks against property and parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, likely due to its historical links to the Russian Orthodox Church.
Two weeks ago, the U.N.’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine report concluded Russia committed human rights violations and war crimes as it invaded in 2022, citing the use of explosives and torture against civilians.
It found that the siege of the eastern port of Mariupol early on in the war, which razed much of the city, noting residents’ accounts of “unbearable suffering endured during relentless shelling and aerial bombardments which caused large-scale death, injury, and destruction.”
The report found new evidence backing up an earlier report that found that torture was being systematically used by Russia in detention facilities in occupied parts of Ukraine and in Russia.
It also condemned recent civilian casualties caused by “indiscriminate attacks violating international humanitarian law committed by Russian armed forces”, as well as damage and destruction of hospitals, cultural facilities and other civic amenities.
