Russia continues to commit serious human rights violations and war crimes in Ukraine, including “systematic” rape and torture, United Nations investigators said on Friday.
The high-level Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the rights situation in Ukraine since the large-scale invasion said it had found new evidence of widespread abuses.
He also expressed concern about the continued use of explosive weapons in civilian areas, confirming “a pattern of disregard by the Russian armed forces for possible harm to civilians.”
“The evidence shows that the Russian authorities have committed violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law and corresponding war crimes,” IOC chief Erik Mose told reporters.
“Further investigations are required to determine whether some of the situations identified may constitute crimes against humanity,” he added.
Moscow has been fighting a war against Ukraine for more than two years and has recently made territorial gains on the battlefield.
An office chair in a basement hallway in a building used, according to a war crimes prosecutor, by Russian forces as a torture site in Kherson, Ukraine, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022.
Plastic torture restraints and a broken chair are seen inside the basement of an office building, where prosecutors say 30 people were detained for two months during the Russian occupation, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kherson, Ukraine, December 10, 2022.
FILE – A recently exchanged Ukrainian prisoner of war cries as he calls his family after a prisoner exchange at the Ukraine-Russia border, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024.
The photo shows Volodymyr Tsema-Bursov, undated. Ukrainian man allegedly held in Russian captivity for 20 months
Oksana Minenko, 44, shows how she was tortured by Russian occupation forces as she speaks to Reuters, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues.
(FILES) This photo shows an empty coffin after the exhumation of bodies in mass graves dug during the Russian occupation in the city of Izium, eastern Ukraine, on January 2, 2023.
A garage adjacent to a courthouse in the village of Bilozerka, Kherson region, southern Ukraine, December 2, 2022, where Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces were stationed and illegally detained civilians.
Oksana Minenko, 44, who says she has been repeatedly detained and tortured by Russian occupation forces, speaks during an interview with Reuters, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Kherson, Ukraine, December 11, 2022.
Confirming earlier findings, the UN said torture by Russian authorities has been “widespread and systematic” in both Ukraine and Russia.
Investigators said they compiled their latest report after speaking to more than 800 people during 16 separate visits to Ukraine.
The team found that Russia’s treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war was “horrible.”
‘The report documents incidents of rape and other types of sexual violence committed against women in circumstances that also constitute torture.
“It also details incidents of torture with a sexualized dimension and threats of rape against male prisoners of war.”
Investigators also found “additional evidence” that Ukrainian children had been illegally transferred to areas under Russian control.
For the first time, researchers examined Russia’s looting of Ukrainian cultural objects and archival documents, particularly from the city of Kherson, which was first occupied by Russian forces in March 2022 before being liberated about eight months later.
During the final weeks of occupation, in October and November 2022, Russian authorities transferred cultural objects from the Kherson Regional Art Museum and archival documents from the State Archives of Kherson Province to occupied Crimea.
“According to estimates by employees of both institutions, more than 10,000 museum objects and 70 percent of documents from the main building of the State Archives were removed,” the report says.
The UN report called this cultural appropriation a “war crime.”