UN says Russia systematically tortures thousands of detained Ukrainians

The United Nations says more than 16,000 civilians detained by Russia since the invasion of Ukraine remain in custody, and many of those held are kept without outside contact and in conditions that violate international law.

UN officials describe widespread abuse

Claudia Fuentes Julio, the UN Assistant Secretary‑General for Human Rights, told an informal meeting of the UN Security Council that Russian authorities continue a campaign of "systematic torture, ill‑treatment and sexual violence" against Ukrainian civilians and captured fighters. The meeting was convened at the initiative of Latvia and the United Kingdom and took place while both Moscow and Kyiv have stepped up military operations in the four‑year conflict.

UN human rights investigators have not had access to detention facilities in Russia, and the organization’s estimate that more than 16,000 civilians have been detained does not specify how many are adults and how many are children. Since the start of the invasion, UN rights experts have interviewed 910 Ukrainian prisoners of war and 403 civilians after their release.

According to the UN office, more than 95 percent of interviewed Ukrainian POWs and 85 percent of civilians said they had been tortured or otherwise ill‑treated, often repeatedly. Testimonies recorded by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) include reports of sexual assault, inadequate access to food and insufficient medical care.

The UN office has documented the execution of 129 Ukrainian prisoners of war early in their captivity, and the deaths of 48 POWs in detention as a result of torture, lack of medical care or other inhuman conditions, Fuentes Julio said. Separately, a Russian soldier has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a Ukrainian prisoner of war.

One witness, Kuan Lejva Garcia, who was among the hundreds of fighters who defended besieged Mariupol before surrendering to Russian forces in May 2022, described being tortured, beaten and humiliated. He told investigators that captors tried to break prisoners mentally and force confessions to fabricated crimes. He said the abuse included exposure to cold, beatings, electric shocks and sexual violence. "Two of my friends were beaten to death in detention centres in the Donetsk region," Garcia said.

Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, Maria Zabolotskaya, rejected the meeting’s premise and said Russian forces respect international humanitarian law, calling the Security Council session part of a "disinformation campaign against Russia."

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