Russia has tortured more than 5,000 Ukrainian civilians, says Kyiv’s prosecutor general
Russia has tortured more than half of the 10,000 Ukrainian civilians it is keeping captive, Kyiv’s prosecutor general has said.
Andriy Kostin told Interfax-Ukraine, “We estimate tens of thousands, more than 10,000 for sure” are being held by Russia.
“We are talking only about those who were forcibly relocated, not about those who made this decision at their own discretion,” he said.
He went on to say about 5,600 have been tortured but added the true figures may be “much higher”, stating that 164 Russian torture chambers and forced detention centres have been discovered in liberated Ukrainian territories.
Mr Kostin urged the United Nations to take action on Russia’s imprisonment of Ukrainian civilians, adding that work is underway to put together a list of all those captured.
A UN General Assembly resolution on the issue could be used to put “pressure on the aggressor country to release our civilians and bring them back to Ukraine”, he said.
Asked whether it is possible to differentiate between those who have voluntarily moved to Russian-occupied Ukraine and those who were forced to move and are now imprisoned, Mr Kostin described the distinction as “inappropriate”.
“When we talk about occupied territories, the word ‘voluntarily’ is inappropriate. Some people are forced to leave because of attacks; others are promised material assistance and illusory security. But any action taken under such pressure is not voluntary,” he said.
His warning comes as more than 30 Ukrainian prisoners of war were executed in Russia this winter, a report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has found.
The OHCHR said that it had recorded 12 cases of executions of at least 32 captured Ukrainian POWs during the winter, indicating that some of the prisoners were killed in groups.
The report, based on interviews with 60 Ukrainian soldiers released from captivity, “verified three of these incidents in which Russian servicemen executed seven Ukrainian servicemen hors de combat”, it read.
Reports of Ukrainian POWs being tortured or killed while in Russian captivity have repeatedly emerged since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
As of late February, the prosecutor general’s office said that 19 criminal investigations were underway into the execution of 45 Ukrainian prisoners.
