Russian Policy and Practices of Torture : the Case of Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia (extracts)

74.  From late August 2022 Ukrainian forces led counter‑offensive operations in the regions of Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson which resulted in their retaking hundreds of settlements. Populations from recovered cities and settlements reported large-scale atrocities, such as unlawful killings, summary executions, torture, sexual violence and unlawful confinement during the period of occupation.

100.  On 12 May 2022 the HRC adopted resolution A/HRC/RES/S-34/1 on the deteriorating human rights situation in Ukraine stemming from the Russian aggression. It expressed deep concern at the alarming number of civilian casualties caused by the aggression against Ukraine and strongly condemned attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including attacks on residential areas, schools, kindergartens and medical facilities, and attacks carried out through the use of cluster munitions, air strikes and artillery, as well as the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, arbitrary executions, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, sexual and gender-based violence, forced transfers of population, or violations and abuses committed against children. The HRC strongly condemned “the violations and abuses of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law, confirmed by the High Commissioner [for Human Rights], that were committed in the areas of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy regions under the control of Russian armed forces in late February and in March 2022, including the very large number of reported cases of summary executions of men, women and children, of sexual and gender‑based violence, of the use of torture and other ill-treatment, and of other violations that may amount to war crimes and related crimes”. It expressed deep concern “at the grave human rights and humanitarian situation in the city of Mariupol, the near total destruction of its residential and civilian infrastructure caused by Russian bombing and shelling, reports of tens of thousands of civilian casualties and of mass graves near the city, and the limited progress in ensuring the safe and unhindered evacuation of civilians to safe areas under the control of the Government of Ukraine”.

108.  The Commission of Inquiry, whose mandate was extended in 2023, 2024 and 2025, has published a total of six reports (three to the UN General Assembly in October 2022, October 2023 and October 2024, and three to the UN HRC in March 2023, March 2024 and March 2025) and two conference room papers (August 2023 and May 2025) to date. According to these documents, the body of evidence collected showed that Russian authorities had committed a wide range of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in many regions of Ukraine and in the Russian Federation. Many of these amounted to war crimes and included wilful killings, attacks on civilians, unlawful confinement, torture, rape, and forced transfers and deportations of children. The Commission of Inquiry has concluded that Russian armed forces carried out attacks with explosive weapons in populated areas with an apparent disregard for civilian harm and suffering. It has documented indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, and a failure to take precautions, in violation of international humanitarian law. It has found sufficient evidence to enable it to determine that the Russian authorities had perpetrated torture and enforced disappearance as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population and pursuant to a coordinated State policy of torture. It has concluded that the Russian authorities committed enforced disappearances and torture as crimes against humanity.

118.  A total of four mission reports have been prepared (13 April and 14 July 2022, 4 May 2023 and 24 April 2024), either with a general mandate to establish facts and circumstances surrounding possible contraventions of OSCE commitments, violations and abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, or with more targeted mandates concerning the forcible transfer of children or the arbitrary deprivation of liberty. The missions found clear patterns of international humanitarian law violations by the Russian forces in their conduct of hostilities and concluded that international human rights law had been extensively violated in the conflict in Ukraine. Some of the most serious violations included targeted killing of civilians, including journalists, human rights defenders or local mayors; unlawful detentions, abductions and enforced disappearances of such persons; large-scale deportations of Ukrainian civilians to Russia; various forms of mistreatment, including torture, inflicted on detained civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the failure to respect fair trial guarantees; and the imposition of the death penalty.

195.  The findings of the Commission of Inquiry rely primarily on first-hand information, including numerous visits to Ukraine to collect and preserve evidence of violations and related crimes; hundreds of interviews conducted in person and remotely; inspection of sites of destruction, graves, places of detention and torture, and weapon remnants; and consultation of a large number of documents and reports. The Commission of Inquiry has met with government authorities, international organisations, civil society and other relevant stakeholders. According to its published methodology, it has included findings in its report when, based on a body of verified information, an objective and ordinary prudent observer would have reasonable grounds to conclude that the facts had taken place as described. It has drawn legal conclusions when there were reasonable grounds to conclude that the facts met all the elements of a violation or abuse and, where possible, that an individual or entity was responsible.

264.  The application of these principles would lead to the conclusion that Article 1 jurisdiction arose in respect of most categories of violation committed by Russia and described in the present case, namely:

–  Article 1 jurisdiction arose under the “effective control of an area” principle in respect of violations that occurred within territory occupied by Russia within the meaning of Article 42 of the Hague Regulations. The atrocities perpetrated in Kherson, Bucha and Melitopol, for example, appeared to have occurred during a period of Russian occupation. The forced removal of Ukrainian nationals (including children) to Russia and the theft and destruction of property in occupied territory were further clear examples.

–  Jurisdiction arose under the “State agent authority and control” principle in respect of: (i) detained combatants or civilians; (ii) persons in buildings or premises controlled by Russian troops; and (iii) persons who were abused or summarily executed by Russian soldiers in circumstances of close proximity. The application detailed extensive violations in these categories including murder/summary execution, torture, rape, forced labour, and arbitrary detention.

538.  Article 3 prohibits in absolute terms torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (see O’Keeffe v. Ireland [GC], no. 35810/09, § 144, ECHR 2014 (extracts)). The Court has always been sensitive to the profound psychological impact of a serious human rights violation on the victim’s family members (Janowiec and Others, § 177). It has explained that the phenomenon of disappearances imposes a particular burden on the relatives of missing persons who are kept in ignorance of the fate of their loved ones and suffer the anguish of uncertainty. In such circumstances, the situation of the relatives may disclose inhuman and degrading treatment contrary to Article 3. The essence of the Article 3 violation in such cases is not that there has been a serious human rights violation concerning the missing person; it lies in the authorities’ reactions and attitudes to the situation when it has been brought to their attention. Other relevant factors include the proximity of the family tie, the particular circumstances of the relationship, the extent to which the family member witnessed the events in question and the involvement of the family member in the attempts to obtain information about the disappeared person (Varnava and Others, § 200; Janowiec and Others, §§ 177-78).

592.  The OHCHR observed in its report covering the period from August to November 2015 that places of detention maintained by the separatists “remained virtually inaccessible for independent oversight, and international organizations, including the HRMMU, did not have access to detainees” . It identified an urgent need for independent monitoring of these facilities, given the considerable number of cases of torture and ill-treatment documented by the HRMMU since the beginning of the conflict. In a report published in June 2016 the OHCHR noted a “worrying pattern of behaviour” involving the denial by the “DPR” and the “LPR” of unfettered access to places of deprivation of liberty by international organisations and external observers. This “considerably limit[ed] OHCHR’s ability to report on human rights abuses” perpetrated in “DPR”- and “LPR”-controlled territory. In 2017 the OHCHR reported that it was denied access to places where people were deprived of their liberty and was not permitted to hold confidential interviews. It observed that “this denial of access raises serious concerns that human rights abuses may be occurring”. From June 2018 its operations in territory controlled by the “DPR” and the “LPR” were “severely restricted”. It highlighted that the continued denial of access, despite repeated requests, to detention facilities and its resulting inability to monitor treatment of detainees and detention conditions were of particular concern.

593.  In light of the continued denial of access to detainees, the OHCHR’s documentation of human rights violations during capture, abduction or detention was often based on interviews with former detainees following their release. Because of the length of detention in many cases, the evidence provided by detainees often relates to acts which have taken place several years earlier. This is notably the case with the witness statements provided to the Court from detainees returned to Ukraine under prisoner exchange agreements reached in 2017 and in 2019: many had been taken into captivity in 2014 and 2015 but were only able to share their accounts of the events leading to that captivity after their release. HRMMU reporting of alleged arbitrary killings, torture and ill-treatment and unlawful detention similarly refers often to incidents which happened in earlier years of the conflict, on the basis of recent interviews with released prisoners. In one report from 2016, for example, the OHCHR explained that though new cases of enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment it had documented mostly fell outside the relevant reporting period, it believed that this demonstrated “the hidden character of the phenomenon and delayed reporting by witnesses and victims, rather than a genuine improvement in the conduct of relevant actors”.

594.  Finally, the history of the conflict in Ukraine has shown that apparent human rights violations have often come to light following the recovery by the Ukrainian armed forces of control over territory. Thus, the recovery of control over Sloviansk and surrounding areas in the summer of 2014 resulted in the discovery of documents and testimony relating to “execution orders” carried out by separatists (see paragraphs 783-784 below). The reacquisition of control by Ukraine over Bucha in 2022 led to the discovery of mass graves and bodies showing evidence of torture (see paragraphs 894-896 and 1000 below). In view of the general stability of the contact line between 2015 and early 2022, opportunities during this period for uncovering human rights abuses in previously-occupied territory were absent.

743.  The Court has dealt with applications where it was undisputed that individuals had died in circumstances falling outside the exceptions set out in the second paragraph of Article 2 of the Convention. Where it found it to be established that the victims had been killed by State agents, or with their connivance or acquiescence, it found the respondent State liable for their death (Georgia v. Russia (II), § 202 and the authorities cited therein, and §§ 220 and 222). Article 2 may also apply where the force used was not, in the event, lethal. In such cases, the degree and type of force used and the intention or aim behind the use of force may, among other factors, be relevant in assessing whether the facts fall within the scope of the safeguard afforded by Article 2 of the Convention, having regard to the object and purpose pursued by that Article (Makaratzis, §§ 49-55).

744.   In Georgia v. Russia (II), the Court found a violation of Article 3 in the context of grave violations of the Convention committed during an armed conflict having regard to the seriousness of the abuses committed, owing to the feelings of anguish and distress suffered by the victims (§§ 220 and 222).

745.  The Court has moreover recognised that there may, in certain circumstances, be positive obligations on the State under Articles 2 and 3 to protect the lives of individuals and to ensure that individuals within their jurisdiction are not subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment (Makaratzis, § 50, and the examples given there; and O’Keeffe, cited above, §§ 144-48).

746.  The deliberate destruction of civilian homes and their contents by State agents constitutes a serious interference with the right to respect for their family lives and homes and with the peaceful enjoyment of their possessions under Article 8 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No 1 to the Convention respectively (Akdivar and Others v. Turkey, 16 September 1996, § 88; İpek v. Turkey, no. 25760/94, § 194. See also Georgia v. Russia (II), § 204 and the additional cases cited there, and §§ 220 and 222).

774.  In reports based on monitoring observations by the HRMMU, the OHCHR stated that in the late spring of 2014 armed groups were increasingly committing grave human rights abuses, including abductions, unlawful detentions and harassment, in particular of journalists, as well as killings, torture and ill-treatment, and that the “DPR” and “LPR” were accountable for human rights violations committed in the territories under their control. The OHCHR subsequently regularly reported that it continued to receive and verify allegations of summary executions, disappearances, unlawful and arbitrary detention and torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian soldiers, civilians and individuals associated with armed groups.

775.  The OSCE SMM reported a number of incidents of deprivation of liberty in its regular updates in spring 2014. For example, on 23 April 2014 in Luhansk, the SMM had met with representatives of an NGO who had declared that they had been held captive for six hours in the SBU building on 21 April and that approximately 100 men in unmarked uniforms armed with machine guns had been occupying the building. On 28 April 2014 the SMM’s Luhansk team had received information that a local activist and supporter of the Ukrainian government had been captured in the town of Shchastia by opponents of the government and had been taken to the SBU building in Luhansk. On 14 May 2014 the SMM had been informed of the abduction of a schoolteacher by unknown uniformed armed men. Reportedly, the teacher had been abducted from his office in the presence of pupils and other teachers, taken into a car and held at the SBU building which had been occupied by the “South-Eastern Army”. The teacher had been released after two hours. On the same day, the self-declared mayor of Sloviansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, had informed the SMM that there were 40 detainees in the city. The SMM had also obtained information that a local Maidan activist had been beaten by armed separatists after being abducted from his home on 23 May 2014. He was believed to have been held incommunicado in Luhansk. The SMM reported the abduction by separatists of two Ukrainian journalists and their driver on 25 May 2014 at a checkpoint in Shchastia.

776.  According to the OHCHR, in June 2014 “[v]iolence and lawlessness ha[d] spread in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk”. Its reports of June and July 2014 referred to increasing abductions and killings of people not involved in any fighting and grave human rights abuses committed by the armed groups in eastern Ukraine. On 23 May 2014 a woman who had allegedly failed to stop at a checkpoint manned by the armed groups in the Luhansk region had died when heavy gun fire was directed at her car. A motorist had been killed when armed groups had stolen the car he had been driving in Novyi Svit in the Donetsk region. The SMM reported that on 15 June 2014 a Maidan activist, who had been held by the “South Eastern Army” in Luhansk had died in hospital shortly after being released.

777.  In June 2014 the OHCHR reported an escalation of violence and violations of international law, including, inter alia, intimidation, harassment and torture, by armed groups in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Several interviews conducted with persons who had been abducted provided vivid accounts of human rights abuses committed by representatives of the separatist entities, including beatings, psychological torture and mock executions. Having gained access to depots of weapons, the armed groups had become increasingly violent. By June 2014 the HRMMU had also become aware of allegations of summary executions of people in the captivity of the armed groups. In its report of 15 June 2014, the OHCHR expressed concerns about reports of summary executions by representatives of the “DPR”. According to the report, some of the allegations were supported by witness testimony, forensic examinations and photographic material. The examples set out in the report included that of an elderly farmer, living in a village near Sloviansk, who had been accused on 18 May 2014 of bringing food to the Ukrainian forces. He had been taken into his garden where a “sentence” had been read out in the name of the “DPR” and he had been shot dead in front of his family and neighbours. In the same report, the OHCHR referred to several reports of killings at checkpoints controlled by armed groups, including the killing of an Orthodox priest, and to the discovery, the day after his abduction by armed groups, of the burned body of a pro‑Maidan activist. According to the OHCHR, the illegal “Sloviansk self‑defence unit” appeared to be responsible for controlling some of the illegal activities, including unlawful and arbitrary detention. Information on unlawfully detained persons had from time to time been confirmed by the self-proclaimed mayor of Sloviansk, Mr Ponomaryov.

782.  The same report confirmed that of those abducted, four had been found dead with visible signs of torture. Following their release, many detainees who had been held by armed groups had reported that they had been subjected to beatings, ill-treatment, sleep deprivation and very poor conditions while in detention. As an “alternative” to torture and ill-treatment, it had been suggested that detainees should join the ranks of those fighting for the armed groups.

785.  A witness who worked as a private entrepreneur in the city of Druzhkivka made a statement describing how Russians and Caucasus natives (Chechens) had arrived in the city on or around 10 June 2014. The witness claimed that a torture chamber had been arranged by separatists in the yard of the local council building where people who did not agree with the events were sent to be tortured and killed. Another witness who worked as a warden at the penal colony no. 32 in Makiivka explained that, on 21 June 2014, he had been taken to a place of detention in Makiivka where he had been severely beaten and questioned. Subsequently he had been taken to “Mr Bezler at Huboz in Horlivka” and placed in a basement with other captives and mutilated dead bodies with their hands tied behind their backs. On several occasions he had been forced to help move away the corpses of people who had been executed. On an unknown date he had been transferred to another basement where he had witnessed Chechen fighters executing nine to fifteen people every night, in the courtyard of their compound.

789.  The HRMMU interviewed a woman who had been held by the armed groups of the “LPR” from July to October 2014. She had been detained together with three men at a checkpoint manned by the “Cossacks’ Union of the All-Great Don Army”. During her first two weeks of detention, she and others had been interrogated and tortured. The woman had been severely beaten with rifle butts and bullet proof vests until she had lost consciousness. As a result, four ribs had been fractured, and her nose and most of her teeth had been broken. During interrogation, the perpetrators had reportedly extinguished cigarette butts against her wrist and threatened the life of her child and mother. She had also reportedly survived an attempted gang rape. She had witnessed the summary execution of two Ukrainian soldiers – one who had been shot and a second who had been beaten to death. During the first two weeks of her captivity, she and other detainees had received no food and almost no water. She had only received medical care and food after having been transferred to the “military commandant’s office” in Luhansk city. There, she had not been ill-treated but had witnessed the beatings of male detainees.

793.  The OHCHR reported killings of civilians and other protected persons, unlawful detentions, enforced disappearances and torture which had occurred in August 2014 in Ilovaisk. Three Ukrainian soldiers had allegedly been killed after they had surrendered on 29 August 2014. There had also been allegations that some Ukrainian soldiers wounded in combat had subsequently been killed despite being hors de combat. The OHCHR documented the enforced disappearance of a male military doctor. According to the eyewitness testimony of two Ukrainian soldiers collected by the HRMMU in October 2015, four members of their unit, namely Pavlo Kalynovskyi, Andrii Malashniak, Andrii Norenko and Dmytro Vlasenko, had been captured alive by armed groups after the unit had been defeated on 5 September 2014 and they were retreating through the corn fields around the villages of Kruta Hora, Raivka and Shyshkove in Slovianoserbskyi district of Luhansk region.

796.  The OHCHR reported that by the beginning of September 2014, at least 1,000 Ukrainian servicemen and “pro-unity” civilians were being held by the armed groups. In its report of 19 September 2014, it indicated that following the September 2014 ceasefire, armed groups had continued to terrorise the population in areas under their control, carrying out serious human rights abuses including killings, abductions, torture and ill-treatment. On 3 September 2014 the SMM visited the Starobilsk Detention Centre in the Luhansk region, where the director told them that the number of detainees, most of whom were accused of “terrorism”, was continuously increasing.

797.  According to the OHCHR, on 25 September 2014, in a village in the Donetsk region, a woman and two of her colleagues (a man and a woman) were abducted at their workplace by armed men from the “Bezler group”. They had been taken to the seized administrative building of a coal mine in Horlivka. After being “registered” in a journal, the three individuals had been informed they were “arrested”. They had been taken to another room which was covered in blood. The man had been violently beaten in front of the women until he had fainted. Both women had been raped by at least seven men and beaten, while interrogated about the whereabouts of their money and valuables. One of the victims had been subjected to electroshocks with wires attached to her breast, after which she had lost consciousness. She had awoken from an injection into her arm. Through the open door, she had seen a room full of valuables, among which she had recognised some of her belongings. She had later found out that while she and her colleagues were being tortured, the armed groups had robbed their houses. For the following ten days, she had been taken for “interrogation” almost every night, and had been raped by intoxicated armed group members. For the following months she had been forced to cook meals for the armed group and for other people deprived of liberty (both civilians and Ukrainian army soldiers). On 7 November 2014 she had been released.

802.  The OHCHR stated in its report of November 2014:

“In territories under the control of both ‘republics’, cases of serious human rights abuses by the armed groups continued to be reported, including torture, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, summary executions, forced labour, sexual violence, as well as the destruction and illegal seizure of property. These violations are of a systematic nature and may amount to crimes against humanity.”

803.  Based on an interview with a “DPR” armed member, the SMM reported in November 2014 that the “DPR” were holding sixty-six members from the Ukrainian Donbas battalion hostage and had tasked them with the reconstruction of buildings. Mission Eurasia’s report on “Religious persecution in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea 2014” referred to an incident where a pastor for the Word of Life Church in Pryvillia, in the Luhansk region, had been beaten by separatists and then forced to clean up an abandoned factory.

804.  In December 2014 the OHCHR reported that “[t]he break-down of law and order in the conflict zone has resulted in killings, abductions, torture, ill-treatment, sexual violence, forced labour, ransom demands and extortion of money by the armed groups which have been reported during the whole conflict period”. Persecution and intimidation of people who had been suspected of supporting Ukrainian forces or holding pro-Ukrainian sympathies remained widespread and included deprivation of liberty and mock executions.

805.  The OHCHR reported that on 30 December 2014 the prosecutor general’s office of the “LPR” had initiated a criminal case against armed group commander Aleksandr Biednov (call sign “Batman”) and his subordinates for illegal detention and torture resulting in the death of a detainee. On 2 January 2015 videos had been released showing members of Biednov’s group confessing to running a facility in the basement of a university library in Luhansk and taking part in the ill-treatment of captives. The head of the facility (call sign “Maniac”) had allegedly used a hammer to torture prisoners and surgery kit to scare and extract confessions from prisoners.

817.  The HRMMU interviewed a man who had been detained in the “base” of a “Cossack” armed group in Donetsk from 1 to 28 February 2015. He had reportedly witnessed other captives being beaten, including with rifle butts. His cellmate had told him that he had been tortured with electric current and had had his ears cut. The victim had spent ten days in an isolated cell with a temperature of approximately five degrees Celsius.

821.  The OHCHR reported that in February 2015 around 13 Ukrainian soldiers had been captured by armed groups near Debaltseve. The victims had been struck on the head with rifle butts, forced to remove their jackets despite the very low temperatures and ordered to kneel for four hours in the snow, causing their legs to go numb. Some members of the armed groups had put knives to their faces and threatened: “What do you want me to cut off, an eye or an ear?” All the victims had subsequently been transferred to a building in Luhansk. During interrogations the soldiers had been severely beaten. One soldier had been held in a cell with a civilian whose body had been completely blue, ostensibly as a result of severe beatings. The civilian had told the soldier that he had been accused by the armed groups of being a spotter and had been tortured until he had “confessed”.

825.  The OHCHR documented the case of a man who had been detained at a checkpoint run by an armed group in March 2015 and taken to Dokuchaievsk. He had been tortured by armed men in “DPR” uniforms, beaten with truncheons, subjected to electric shocks and smashed in the head. He had been taken to a hospital and then transferred to the seized former SBU building in Donetsk city, where he had been tortured again in the same manner. Later, the victim had been tied to a chair, interrogated and beaten with a plastic pipe. One of the perpetrators had fastened a belt around his neck and had tightened it until the victim had lost consciousness. Electric shocks had been used repeatedly. The perpetrators had also threatened that he would be forced to blow himself up. The victim had been released in April 2016.

826.  On 11 March 2015 a journalist from Donetsk region had reportedly been abducted by armed groups. After his mother had filed a complaint to local police, armed groups had conducted a search of her house and intimidated her. The journalist had been released on 10 May 2015.

827.  The OHCHR reported that between 1 and 15 April 2015, in the town of Dokuchaievsk, members of the “DPR” had allegedly summarily executed a man whom they had accused of attacking one of their checkpoints. The victim’s wife had identified his body and had noted signs of torture.

831.  In June 2015 the OHCHR reported that the pattern of abductions consisted of groups of armed men taking people away and detaining them in one of the buildings they occupied on the grounds that they were members of “Right Sector” and “spies”. Some detainees had been released after a few hours, some after a few days, and there were numerous accounts of allegations of ill-treatment and torture. The OHCHR documented the case of a man from Vuhledar and his son who, on 12 June 2015, had been abducted by unknown armed people while driving in the Donetsk region. They had reportedly been held in an unknown location where they had been tortured and ill-treated. After a few days, the son had been released but the whereabouts and fate of the father remained unknown three years later.

832.  A report by a coalition of NGOs assessed that by 22 July 2015 there had been 2,763 persons released from places of detention in the “DPR” and the “LPR” and identified 61 places of detention either by address or by a detailed description provided by former detainees. The information collected in interviews with former detainees in facilities in eastern Ukraine and from open sources suggested that the separatists used the premises of law-enforcement agencies, administrative buildings of local authorities, military enlistment offices and military bases, offices, private residences, hotels and dormitories, public catering enterprises, industrial enterprises and several other auxiliary buildings, such as hangars, cages or vehicle sheds, as places of detention. Almost half of the detainees had stayed in basements and many of them had been held in places that lacked even minimum conditions for accommodation. The report explained that militants of separatist armed groups had manifested particular cruelty during the illegal detention of civilians. Detained persons had been subjected to lengthy beatings with the use of hands, feet and weapons with blows to all body parts, including the head. They had been handcuffed, tied with ropes or rubber straps and had bags put over their heads and several methods of torture and cruel treatment had been used such as assaults, the use of pneumatic weapons, suffocation, mock executions, threats, humiliations and psychological pressure, sleep deprivation, and food and water deprivation. There was a widespread practice of torture and cruel treatment. The report concluded that these were systemic and large-scale phenomena proving the existence of a deliberate policy of torture and ill-treatment of detainees.

833.  The OHCHR reported that a serviceman of the Ukrainian armed forces had been captured on 10 August 2015 near the village of Verkhniotoretske (Donetsk region) by four members of the “Vostok battalion” of the “DPR”. They had put a plastic bag on his head, handcuffed him and driven him to a private house. He had then been tied to a tree with wristbands, severely beaten, threatened and tortured with electrical shocks. He had lost consciousness on several occasions. After three hours of torture had been inflicted by some 10 men wearing masks and camouflage with the insignia of the “DPR”, he had been interrogated. No medical aid had been provided to him. He had then been transferred to a military base in the centre of Makiivka. In October 2015 he had been taken to a sports hall not far from the military base in Makiivka and had been placed in a cell with two local civilians and two members of the armed groups. Within a month, he had been taken to a basement of an office centre in Makiivka where he had been held until his transfer to government-controlled territory on 20 February 2016 as part of a simultaneous release of detainees.

836.  A man, who had spent a year in the armed groups’ captivity, described in detail the conditions in the former SBU premises in Donetsk when later interviewed by the HRMMU. According to the OHCHR’s report, he had referred to overcrowding, insufficient nutrition and lack of adequate medical treatment as well as ill-treatment, torture and forced labour. He had described the conditions as particularly bad in 2014 and had noted some improvement in 2015. He had also reported numerous incidents when he and other detainees, including women, had been tortured through mock executions, beatings and electrocution. Another former detainee had reported poor nutrition and lack of medical aid in a detention facility in Donetsk in the summer of 2015. A man released from penal colony no. 97 in Makiivka had spoken of a room called by inmates the “tram” because it looked like a very small and narrow metal tram carriage, with a metal tube in it. He had explained that when an inmate was considered to have misbehaved, he was suspended from the tube, wrapped in a sticky tape, sometimes for three to five hours but often for a whole night. The witness had also described cases of repeated negligence in providing medical assistance to inmates and had reported that, in January 2015, one inmate had died as a result of not receiving timely medical assistance.

841.  The OHCHR reported in June 2016 that the “DPR” and “LPR” had imposed an arbitrary system of rules and had established a network of places of deprivation of liberty where detainees were tortured and ill-treated. It said that deprivation of liberty had “reached an unprecedented scale” in territory controlled by the armed groups, with a broad network of unrecognised detention facilities. Thousands of people had gone through these places of deprivation of liberty, subjected to inhuman conditions of detention. The “ministry of state security” of the “DPR” had emerged as the main entity responsible for carrying out repressive house searches, arrests and detentions (ibid.). In August 2016 the OHCHR noted that members of the “ministry of state security of the DPR” continued to deprive individuals of their liberty and to keep them incommunicado. Such deprivations of liberty were often accompanied by torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and, according to the OHCHR, could in themselves constitute such treatment. In a statement, one witness claimed that he had been arrested by the Russian Federal Security Service (“FSB”) after having crossed into Russia at the Novoshakhtynske crossing point. He said that he had been detained from 15 to 24 April 2016 at the FSB directorate in Rostov and that during his detention he had heard Ukrainian Army servicemen being tortured and killed in the neighbouring cells.

842.  According to OHCHR reporting, in June 2016 two men had been abducted by armed members of the “LPR” and had been beaten, kicked and tortured by men wearing camouflage, who had accused them of espionage; one man had died as a result of the injuries. On 21 July 2016 a co-founder of a humanitarian organisation in Donetsk had been deprived of her liberty for the second time after her release at the end of February 2016 by people who had identified themselves as members of the “security ministry”. On 9 August 2016 the OHCHR was informed of her release. In July 2016 a man had been found shot dead near his house in a village of the Luhansk region controlled by armed groups. Neighbours had heard three shots on the preceding evening and there had been a checkpoint nearby, manned by the separatists from the “Brianka-USSR battalion”. The victim’s family had later been notified that a suspect had been “arrested” by “police”. In August 2016 a woman had been accused of “espionage”, and detained by armed groups in the Luhansk SIZO together with those who had committed criminal offences. One evening the guards had brought her to the new officer on duty upon his demand. He had told her that the “conditions in cells can be very different”, which she had perceived as a threat of violence. Then he had raped her. From then on, he had called her to his office nearly once a week forcing her to perform oral sex. She had not complained to anyone for fear of retaliation. She had been released several months later.

843.  The OHCHR reported that on 26 August 2016, a man had been detained by two armed men in military uniform near the “LPR”-controlled town of Rovenky. He had been taken to a mining facility, where he had not been provided with water or food and had not been allowed to use the restroom. A few days later he had been taken to the “ministry of state security” building in Luhansk, where he had been detained for several weeks alone in a cell with the lights on all day and night. He had been pushed down the stairs, thrown against a wall and forced to wear a plastic bag over his head whenever he was moved from his cell. Members of the “ministry of state security” had threatened further violence against him and against his family if he did not confess to preparing a terrorist attack. During his interrogations the men had slapped and kicked him, and had knocked a chair from under him, throwing him to the floor. On 22 September 2016 “ministry of state security” personnel had put a plastic bag over his head and had taken him across the border into the Russian Federation, where they had handed him over to the FSB. Between 23 and 27 September he had been interrogated in Morozovsk by FSB officers who had tortured and ill-treated him with beatings and electroshocks, causing him to lose consciousness several times. On 27 September he had agreed to confess to preparing a terrorist attack, after which he had been held in SIZOs in Rostov-on-Don and in Samara in the Russian Federation.

853.  In its report of February 2017 on conflict-related sexual violence, the OHCHR noted that in a number of cases it had documented, victims had reported surviving and evading attempted rapes largely due to sudden extraneous circumstances. It observed, “While this may have been the case, it also may be a sign that they were unwilling to provide detailed accounts of what had happened due to stigma, shame, humiliation, trauma and fear of possible reprisals”. It explained that, as underscored by the OHCHR Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Istanbul Protocol), sexual torture often makes survivors feel irredeemably stigmatised and tainted in their moral, religious, social or psychological integrity.

854.  The OHCHR stated in its report covering the period of 16 February to 15 May 2017 that it had received information about the case of two residents of Horlivka who had gone missing in October 2016. Their bodies had reportedly been found on 20 March 2017, buried in Horlivka. They had allegedly been shot dead by members of armed groups in October 2016. The OHCHR had also continued to receive recent testimonies concerning individuals unlawfully or arbitrarily deprived of their liberty in territory controlled by the armed groups, which it said indicated “that such practices were persisting”. It continued to document cases of torture in the “DPR” and the “LPR”, noting that “[d]ue to limited access to places of deprivation of liberty, OHCHR is often able to document such cases only after the release of the individuals when they move to government-controlled territory and are able to speak more freely about their experiences”.

864.  Between 16 February and 15 May 2018, the HRMMU documented 93 cases, involving 149 credible allegations of arbitrary detention, torture, ill‑treatment, sexual violence and/or threats to physical integrity committed on both sides of the contact line. In 15 of these cases, the incidents had occurred during the reporting period and armed groups had been responsible. The OHCHR also reported information provided by former detainees who had been released on 27 December 2017 which it said indicated that persons held in detention facilities of the “DPR” and “LPR” had frequently been subjected to torture and ill-treatment.

865.  In the period from 16 February to 15 May 2018 the OHCHR reported the cases of 11 victims who had been detained while attempting to cross the contact line and 3 individuals detained in 2018 either at their homes or near their workplace, whose families had not been able to receive information about their whereabouts. The OHCHR also documented four cases where civilians had been detained after expressing pro-Ukrainian views or being critical towards the authorities.

866.  The OHCHR said that it remained concerned about “preventive arrest” which had been introduced in the “LPR” in February 2018 and which enabled a person to be detained for up to sixty days without access to lawyers or relatives. Between 16 May and 15 August 2018, it had received information about two people who had been detained for thirty and sixty-four days respectively under “preventive arrest” by the “ministry of the interior” and “ministry of security”. One man had been detained by the “ministry of security” on 28 March 2018 while crossing the Stanytsia Luhanska checkpoint. His mother had not been informed until 19 April 2018 that her son had been put under “preventive arrest”. The man had reportedly been severely beaten. The beatings had stopped when, being unable to take the torture any more, he had “agreed” with the accusations. He had been released after sixty-four days of detention.

867.  The OHCHR documented several cases of individuals who had been arbitrarily arrested by the “DPR” “ministry of security” and held incommunicado in “Izoliatsiia” under “administrative arrest” during which they had been tortured. Based on interviews, the OHCHR was able to confirm that at least forty individuals had been held in “Izoliatsiia” in the first half of 2018. A witness detained on 7 April 2018 by the “DPR” and, from 17 April 2018, held in “Izoliatsiia” stated that he and other prisoners had been made to engage in forced labour at the prison and at the Russian army base, as well as on building grounds for military manoeuvres.

868.  From June 2018 the OHCHR reported that its operations in the “DPR” and the “LPR” had been substantively restricted despite ongoing discussions through regular meetings with representatives of both self‑proclaimed “republics”. The OHCHR continued to document human rights violations based on interviews with people released from detention.

869.  Over the period 16 August to 15 November 2018 the OHCHR documented 25 human rights violations involving unlawful or arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment sexual violence and/or threats to physical integrity, attributable to the armed groups. Six violations affecting two victims had occurred during the reporting period and had been attributable to the armed groups. The OHCHR said it “remain[ed] concerned that in territory controlled by ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ and ‘Luhansk people’s republic’, the practice of 30-day ‘preventive arrest’ and ‘administrative arrest’ prevails, which amounts to arbitrary incommunicado detention”. It was aware of at least four cases of “preventive arrest” that had occurred in “LPR”-controlled territory and at least one case of alleged arbitrary arrest that had occurred in “DPR”-controlled territory during the period under review. It referred to the case of a man detained at a checkpoint in August 2018 by the “LPR ministry of security” on suspicion of drug smuggling, as he had been carrying drugs for substitution maintenance therapy which he had received at hospital. He had been held incommunicado at the “ministry of security” building in Luhansk for nearly two months before his detention had been formalised by a “measure of restraint” of custodial detention imposed by a “court”. He had remained in detention as at November 2018.

870.  According to the OHCHR, on 17 December 2018 a man had been detained by the “ministry of state security” of the “DPR” at the Uspenka border crossing point with the Russian Federation in territory controlled by “DPR”. He had been detained incommunicado for sixty days. During his detention, he had been tortured, including with electricity, until he had confessed to having cooperated with the SBU. On 18 February 2019 the “ministry of state security” agents had taken the man to the border crossing point with the Russian Federation, where he had been forced to cross and had immediately been apprehended by the FSB.

871.  During the period from 16 November 2018 to 15 February 2019, OHCHR documented at least 154 human rights violations involving unlawful or arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment and/or threats to physical integrity, attributable to the “DPR” and the “LPR”, many of which had occurred during the reporting period (§44, B665). It repeated its “serious concerns” regarding the treatment of detainees and conditions of detention in view of its lack of access to places of deprivation of liberty, observing that “[f]irst-hand information from pre-conflict prisoners transferred to serve their sentence in government-controlled territory supports OHCHR concerns”. It further observed that individuals continued to be subjected to “administrative arrest” and “preventive arrest” in the “DPR” and the “LPR”, respectively, which amounted to “arbitrarily incommunicado detention and may constitute enforced disappearance”. The OHCHR had documented some such cases (ibid.). Moreover, in interviews with prisoners transferred to government-controlled territory, the OHCHR had received allegations of forced labour in most penal colonies of the “LPR”. In Sukhodilsk penal colony no. 36, prisoners had reported being forced to work in shifts between 6.30 a.m. and 9 p.m., often without days off on weekends and for meagre or no compensation. Those who did not want to work were beaten and put in then isolation ward. In its subsequent report, the OHCHR documented reports of forced labour in a number of penal colonies in territory controlled by the “LPR”. The report for the period of 16 May to 15 August 2019 referred to concerns, arising from interviews with prisoners transferred from separatist-held territory, that forced labour continued to be used in Sukhodilsk penal colony no. 36, where those who refused to work were punished through beatings or solitary confinement.

872.  According to the OHCHR, prisoners transferred from the “DPR” and the “LPR” had reported a deterioration of detention conditions and prisoner treatment after the outbreak of the armed conflict in 2014. In particular, they had reported insufficient food supply and a lack of electricity during the power outages in 2014-2015, lasting from a couple of hours to several months, prisoners having had to burn furniture to heat their barracks. They had told the OHCHR that the situation had improved from 2016 but ill‑treatment by prison staff, the absence of adequate medical treatment, including specialised doctors such as gynaecologists, and forced labour had remained a concern. Prisoners had also reported difficulties in maintaining contacts with relatives living in government-controlled territory.

873.  During the period from 16 February to 15 May 2019 the OHCHR continued to document cases of arbitrary and incommunicado detention, torture and ill-treatment in “DPR” and “LPR”, although the prevalence of such cases continued to be considerably lower than in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The OHCHR documented 54 human rights violations and abuses involving arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment and/or threats to physical integrity, which had occurred within the reporting period and had been attributed either to the “DPR” or the “LPR”.

874.  According to the OHCHR, in February 2019 a mother had finally learnt that her two sons had been transferred to the Donetsk SIZO and had been charged with espionage after they had disappeared in 2018. In November 2018 the two brothers had travelled to “DPR”-controlled territory to visit relatives but contact had subsequently been lost. In November 2018 and January 2019 their mother had received replies from the “ministry of security” and the “ombudsperson office” of the “DPR” stating that they had no information about her sons’ location, before the “general prosecutor’s” office had confirmed their whereabouts in February 2019. In February 2019, in “LPR”-controlled territory, a civilian had been detained at Stanytsia Luhanska checkpoint by the “ministry of security”. His mother had been told by the “ministry of security” that they had no information about him, and it was only on 19 March 2019 that she had been informed that he had been put under “preventive arrest”. In April 2019, he had been released (ibid.).

875.  The OHCHR reported that in May 2019, in “LPR”-controlled territory, a man had been detained by “police”. When his wife had requested information on his whereabouts, they had responded that he had been arrested by the “LPR” and would be detained without access to the outside world for thirty days. In July 2019, a “police” representative had informed the victim’s wife that he had been held in the premises of the police department, and the next day a “court” had reportedly formalised his detention.

876.  According to the OHCHR’s report covering the period between 16 August and 15 November 2019, eight soldiers from the Ukrainian armed forces had been apprehended by armed groups near the Olenivka checkpoint on 22 May 2019. One soldier, who had reportedly been sentenced by a “court” of the “DPR” and held in Makiivka penal colony no. 97, had been found dead in his cell on 14 October 2019 in circumstances which suggested that his death had been violent. The HRMMU had also documented cases of arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment occurring in territory controlled by the separatists and in the Russian Federation following detainees’ transfer from the self-proclaimed “republics”.

877.  In its report covering the period from 16 November 2019 to 15 February 2020, the OHCHR stated that it remained “gravely concerned” by continued arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment of conflict-related detainees in the “DPR” and “LPR”. Though individual testimonies varied, the OHCHR had identified and further confirmed a “consistent pattern of arbitrary detention, often amounting to enforced disappearance, torture and ill-treatment of conflict-related detainees in both self-proclaimed ‘republics’”. The torture and ill-treatment of detainees had been systematic during the initial stage of detention (which could last up to a year) but the risk of detainees being subjected to torture and ill-treatment had considerably decreased after a “confession” and especially after completion of “pretrial investigations”. Some detainees had not been informed of the reasons of their detention for a prolonged period, and relatives of those detained had not been provided with any information as to their whereabouts. Interrogations had included threats of violence or rape and blows to the body and face. In “LPR”- and “DPR”-controlled territory, individuals were being detained for publications, including information shared on social media. In the “LPR”, the list of administrative offences had been expanded to include dissemination, including online, of information offending human dignity, public morals and explicit disrespect towards the authorities.

878.  Fifty-two of the 56 people released by the “DPR” and the “LPR” and interviewed by the OHCHR had described having been subjected to torture and/or ill-treatment. The majority of individuals interviewed had explained to the OHCHR that they had been apprehended by armed men wearing no insignia and in balaclavas who had not identified themselves. In most cases, the detainees had not been told why they had been detained. Upon apprehension or while being transported to their first place of detention, many detainees had been blindfolded and/or handcuffed. Some had been beaten or threatened with violence. The first place of detention had usually been either the premises of the “ministry of state security” (in Donetsk or Luhansk) or the “Izoliatsiia” detention facility (in Donetsk). Most detainees had initially been detained under “administrative arrest” (in the “DPR”) or “preventive arrest” (in the “LPR”), and held incommunicado without access to a lawyer. Interrogations had been carried out either at the “ministry of state security” or in the “Izoliatsiia” detention facility in Donetsk or at the “ministry of state security” in Luhansk by individuals who had presented themselves as “officers” of that “ministry” or had not identified themselves at all. Several detainees had believed that Russian “FSB officers” had taken part in the interrogations, and some had perceived them to be in a position of authority. The frequency, intensity and length of the torture and ill-treatment had varied considerably; however, they had usually continued until a detainee agreed to confess (orally, in writing or on video) or to provide information. The methods of torture and ill-treatment had included beatings, electric shocks, asphyxiation (wet and dry), sexual violence, positional torture, removal of body parts (nails and teeth), deprivation of water, food, sleep and access to a toilet, mock executions, threats of violence or death and threats of harm to family. Torture and/or ill-treatment, including in some cases sexual violence, had been inflicted mostly during the interrogations and with a view to extracting confessions or information, in most cases, about working for the SBU. Testimonies of those released detainees had indicated that torture and ill-treatment had also been carried out, including by personnel of some of the detention facilities, for punitive purposes and to humiliate and intimidate. The OHCHR identified a continuum of torture and ill-treatment that was often exacerbated by inhumane detention conditions, in particular in the “Izoliatsiia” detention facility.

879.  The OHCHR reported that on 16 January 2020 an officer of the “ministry of state security” had detained a woman at Stanytsia Luhanska EECP. She had been taken with a bag over her head to the premises of “ministry of state security” in Luhansk, where she had spent a night handcuffed to a chair. Her captors had threatened to harm her family, had interrogated her about her alleged cooperation with the SBU and had submitted her to a polygraph test. On 21 January 2020, after signing papers acknowledging the risks of spying on the “LPR”, she had been released.

880.  In its report for the period from 16 February and 31 July 2020 the OHCHR stated that arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment remained a systemic problem in the “DPR” and the “LPR”, given the widespread and credible allegations of torture and ill-treatment in a number of facilities as well as of detention conditions that did not meet international standards. The OHCHR interviewed 8 detainees released by the “DPR” and the “LPR” and reported that their testimonies confirmed patterns of arbitrary and incommunicado detention, and torture and ill-treatment of conflict-related detainees that had been previously identified by OHCHR. Seven of those interviewed had informed the OHCHR that they had been tortured or and ill-treated, with incidents having place from 2015 to 2018 in the self‑proclaimed “republics”. The methods of torture and ill-treatment had included beatings on different parts of the body, dry asphyxiation, electric shocks, sexual violence, including blows and electric shocks to the genitals, positional torture, prolonged solitary confinement, deprivation of water, food, sleep and access to toilets and threats of physical violence to detainees and their families. The report refers to specific examples of the treatment alleged.

881.  In a report covering the first six years of the conflict, the OHCHR expressed concern about the practice of “administrative detention”, outside the criminal law context, “widely applied through the use of ‘administrative arrest’ in territory controlled by ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ and ‘preventive detention’ in territory controlled by ‘Luhansk people’s republic’”. The report explained that in territory controlled by the “DPR”, a practice of “administrative arrest” was applied in accordance with a “decree” of the “DPR council of ministers” of 28 August 2014. That “decree” had been cancelled upon the adoption of the “criminal procedure code” in August 2018 on the ground that it contradicted the “constitution” of the “republic”. However, the OHCHR explained, “DPR” investigative bodies” continued to apply “administrative arrest” in accordance with another “order” of the “DPR council of ministers”, which had not been officially published. “Preventive arrest” in the “LPR” had been introduced by amendments to the “martial law” dated 2 February 2018. However, the OHCHR had documented cases where arbitrary detention on grounds similar to administrative detention had been applied in the “LPR” before the adoption of these amendments. The OHCHR considered these practices to be contrary to requirements for administrative detention laid out in international human rights law and international humanitarian law, in particular in relation to independent and impartial review, and to amount to a violation of the rights to liberty and a fair trial (ibid.).

882.  The report provided details of the administrative detention procedures. In both the “DPR” and the “LPR”, administrative detention could be unilaterally ordered by an “investigator” or “prosecutor”. It allowed for the arrest of individuals for up to thirty days, during which the detainee did not see a judge and courts exercised no judicial control over the detention. The OHCHR’s research suggested that detainees were rarely informed that they were being administratively detained. Moreover, OHCHR findings in respect of the “DPR” indicated that “administrative arrest” was often, sometimes repeatedly, reapplied on new grounds after the expiration of the initial thirty days (ibid).

883.  The OHCHR further noted that in both the “DPR” and the “LPR”, individuals could be held under “administrative detention” to verify their involvement in crimes against national security. OHCHR monitoring had found that administrative detention was widely used as a replacement for pre‑trial detention in criminal proceedings. During administrative detention, investigative bodies conducted investigations against detainees without formally launching them. They collected evidence and testimony, including from detainees, which were eventually used to indict those detained. The OHCHR noted that international human rights standards prohibited the application of administrative detention to replace pre-trial detention within the criminal justice system as it violated fair trial rights. Moreover, those under administrative detention were held incommunicado. In most cases, relatives were not provided with information about the detention during the initial period (ibid.).

884.  In its 2020 report, the OHCHR also expressed concern that since the adoption of the “DPR” “criminal procedure code” on 24 August 2018, “prosecutors” could order pre-trial detention without court orders or judicial review. This, the OHCHR said, amounted to a violation of the right of persons arrested to be brought before a judicial body and constituted arbitrary detention (ibid.).

885.  From 1 August to 31 October 2020 the HRMMU documented six more cases of arbitrary detention, ill-treatment and torture which had occurred between 2019 and 2020 at the hands of the “ministry of security” or the “ministry of interior” of the self-proclaimed “republics”. Not all persons had been explained the reason for the arrest and no one had provided the victims’ family members with information about their whereabouts, sometimes for months. From 1 August 2020 to 31 January 2021 the OHCHR documented twelve cases of conflict-related arbitrary detention having been carried out on the territory controlled by the “DPR”, mostly by the “ministry of state security”, and eight cases of arbitrary incommunicado detention having taken place in the “LPR” having been carried out by the “ministry of state security” or the “police”, including “shocking testimonies of torture and ill-treatment” in the “Izoliatsiia” detention centre.

886.  On 15 January 2021 the “DPR ministry of internal affairs” had reported that since the start of 2020, more than 350 people suspected of crimes had been detained and taken to the police. For the violation of curfew in 2020, the police had detained more than 3,900 individuals who had been taken to “police stations”. With reference to this statement, the OHCHR stated that it had reasons to believe that those detainees had been at risk of ill‑treatment, as well as of other violations of their rights (ibid.).

887.  Between 1 February to 31 July 2021 the OHCHR documented 13 cases of conflict-related arbitrary detention in the “DPR” and the “LPR”: 1 from 2014, 1 from 2017, 6 from 2020 and 5 from February-July 2021. In April 2021 a woman had been arbitrarily detained by “ministry of security” officers and held incommunicado at a temporary detention facility in Shakhtarsk. In May 2021 she had been told that she would be banned from “DPR” territory for five years, and when she had asked for a written decision an “ministry of security” officer had told her that she would not receive anything as she had no rights. In May 2021 a pregnant woman had been arbitrarily detained by “ministry of security” officers of the “DPR” at a border crossing point where she had been held for four hours before being taken to “ministry of security” premises in Donetsk. She had been accused of espionage and transferred to a temporary detention facility before being transferred to the Donetsk SIZO in June 2021, where she had continued to be detained.

888.  In its thematic report of 2 July 2021 on “Arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment in the context of armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, 2014‑2021” the OHCHR estimated the total number of conflict-related detentions by armed groups in Ukraine from April 2014 to April 2021 at between 4,300-4,700, mostly persons hors de combat and civilians accused of supporting the Ukrainian Government. By April 2021, an estimated 300‑400 individuals remained in detention and an estimated 200-300 individuals had been killed or died while in detention. Of the 532 cases documented by the OHCHR a large majority amounted to arbitrary detention, which remained a “daily occurrence” in “DPR” and “LPR” territory. Between 2014 and 2015 armed groups used more than 50 improvised detention facilities to hold detainees, before the practice was stopped and detainees were held in specially designated facilities. In some of these facilities, such as the “ministries of security” in Donetsk and Luhansk and the “Izoliatsiia” detention facility, torture and ill-treatment had been carried out “systematically”. 82.2% of individuals detained by the “DPR” and 85.7% of individuals detained by the “LPR” had been subjected to torture and ill‑treatment in 2014-2015, including deplorable detention conditions in often improvised detention facilities such as basements, garages, vehicles and open pits. The OHCHR estimated that 2,500 conflict-related detainees had been subjected to torture and ill-treatment in 2014-2021. The report found that torture and ill-treatment had become less common after 2016. Despite this, torture and ill-treatment had continued to occur and had been carried out systematically in some places of detention within the territory controlled by the “DPR” and the “LPR”. Torture and ill-treatment, including conflict‑related sexual violence, had been used to extract confessions or information, or to otherwise force detainees to cooperate, as well as for punitive purposes, to humiliate and intimidate, and to extort money and property. The main perpetrators of arbitrary detention, torture and ill‑treatment at the initial stages of the conflict had been various armed groups, and later, members of the “ministries of state security”. The methods of torture and ill-treatment had included beatings, dry and wet asphyxiation, electrocution, sexual violence on men and women (such as rape, forced nudity and violence to the genitals), positional torture, water, food, sleep or toilet deprivation, isolation, mock executions, prolonged use of handcuffs, hooding, and threats of death or further torture or sexual violence, or harm to family members. The report highlighted the prevailing impunity for perpetrators due to a lack of effective investigations into allegations of arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment, including conflict-related sexual violence.

895.  In the cases investigated by the Commission of Inquiry, several elements, often in combination, had indicated that the victims had been executed. A common element was that the victims had last been seen in the custody or the presence of Russian armed forces. The bodies of the victims had been exhumed from separate or mass graves or recovered from houses or basements that the Russian armed forces had occupied. Some victims’ bodies had been found with their hands tied behind their backs, a clear indication that the victim had been in custody and posed no threat at the time of death. The Commission of Inquiry’s investigations had also shown that the cause of death of the victims was consistent with methods typically used during executions: gunshot wounds to the heads, blunt trauma or slit throats. In some cases, there was also evidence of torture on the bodies, such as bruises, wounds and fractures. While summary executions had mainly been perpetrated following unlawful detention, the Commission of Inquiry had also documented cases in which victims had been executed in public places.

896.  By way of specific examples, the Commission of Inquiry set out the following in their report:

“66. … The Commission interviewed a local official who was among the first on the scene after Russian armed forces withdrew [from Bucha, in Kyiv region]. He told the Commission that he saw eight dead bodies in the backyard of the house where the soldiers had established their base. Some of them had their hands tied behind their backs and presented signs of torture. He also saw more than 10 dead bodies of civilians lying on the street. In another incident, five bodies were found in a basement, with their hands behind their backs and gunshot wounds. A woman confirmed that her adult son was among the five bodies.

67. Summary executions took place in numerous other localities. The Commission is investigating credible allegations of similar executions in 16 other towns and settlements, involving 49 victims. The majority are men of fighting age, but the total includes two women and one 14-year-old boy. The cases are located in all four provinces under the Commission’s initial focus, suggesting a wide geographical pattern.

…

70. … In a case documented in the village of Vyshneve, in Chernihiv Province, which was occupied by Russian armed forces from 28 February to 4 April 2022, witnesses reported that, on 18 March 2022, as they searched for individuals behind an attack on one of their convoys, Russian armed forces arrested three adult brothers. They tied the victims’ hands behind their backs, blindfolded them and beat them severely for three days, after which they shot and buried them in a shallow grave. Two of the brothers died and the third was injured but survived.

…

72. … Witnesses detailed how Russian armed forces apprehended several local residents on 27 February 2022, the day they took control of the village [of Staryi Bykiv, in Chernihiv region] as they were searching for people who had operated a drone that killed one of their soldiers. The perpetrators took the men to their base. Relatives heard screams and gunshots from where the soldiers had detained the victims. The next day, they saw the bodies of six men lying on the street where the incident took place, but were not permitted to access the location until nine days later, when Russian armed forces finally allowed them to pick up the bodies. The bodies had multiple gunshot wounds, stab wounds and broken ribs, and one had a slit throat.

73. … In the village of Vesele, in Kharkiv Province, two witnesses reported that soldiers of the Russian armed forces beat and shot dead a person whom they dragged off a bus that was transporting people to the Russian Federation. After the execution, the perpetrators told the other passengers that the victim had been shot and killed because he had been transmitting information to the Ukrainian armed forces.”

897.  The Commission of Inquiry also detailed numerous cases in which Russian armed forces had shot at civilians trying to flee to safety and obtain food or other necessities, which resulted in the killing or injury of the victims. In the cases documented, the victims were wearing civilian clothes, driving civilian cars and were unarmed. Most of the incidents had taken place during daylight, which meant that their civilian appearance should have been clear to the attackers. Several of the attacks had taken place as civilians had come across Russian military convoys that were on the move. Soldiers had shot civilians using assault rifles or, in some cases, vehicle-mounted weapons. The Commission of Inquiry noted:

 “58. Several incidents took place along the E40 highway in Kyiv Province, also referred to as the Zhytomyr highway, as Russian armed forces established control over sections of it in late February and March 2022. On 28 February 2022, around noon, soldiers in a military convoy on the highway opened fire at four civilians who were attempting to flee through the fields. One woman was injured in the leg. On 1 March 2022, at approximately 10 a.m., soldiers opened fire on a civilian car near Kopyliv. The couple in the car, both in their sixties, managed to escape uninjured. On 3 March 2022, also around 10 a.m., a married couple and their two children came under attack near the village of Motyzhyn. The two adults died in the attack. A 9‑year‑old girl survived, while her sister, aged 15, was wounded and is still missing. Other organizations have documented additional similar incidents in the same area, demonstrating that these cases were not isolated.

59. The Commission has received reports of such incidents in multiple locations in all four provinces covered in the present report, suggesting a clear pattern. For example, a Russian military convoy attacked a civilian car in the village of Shevchenkove, in Kyiv Province, killing two civilians, one man and one woman, on 8 March. A military convoy opened fire on a civilian car near the village of Vyrivka, in Sumy Province, on 27 February, killing a man and injuring his adult son. Soldiers of the Russian armed forces allegedly shot at two civilian cars as people were trying to leave in the village of Stepanky, in Kharkiv Province, on 27 March, killing a woman and a girl. One of the cars was marked with a sign saying ‘children’.”

898.  According to the Commission of Inquiry’s report of 16 March 2023, the evidence it had collected showed a widespread pattern of summary executions in areas that the armed forces of the Russian Federation had controlled in seventeen localities of Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Sumy regions, with the highest number in the Kyiv region, including in the city of Bucha. It had confirmed the executions of 68 victims, mostly during the first few months of the armed conflict. It observed:

“54. In more than half of the executions investigated, witnesses had last seen the victims in the custody of the armed forces of the Russian Federation. In a few cases, eyewitnesses had seen the armed forces of the Russian Federation carry out the executions. The Commission concluded that the armed forces of the Russian Federation were responsible in those cases. In the remaining cases, the victims’ bodies were found at or near locations that the armed forces of the Russian Federation had used as bases. The Commission also concluded that the armed forces of the Russian Federation were likely responsible in those cases.

55. Detention, interrogation, torture or ill-treatment often preceded execution. Some victims had been found with their hands or feet tied. According to medical records and photographs, the most common method of killing was a gunshot to the head at close range.”

910.  The Commission of Inquiry documented multiple cases of deprivation of liberty. In late February and March 2022, the Russian armed forces had unlawfully confined large numbers of civilians in areas which they controlled. Victims included local authority personnel, Government personnel, veterans of the Ukrainian armed forces, volunteers evacuating civilians and civilians who appeared to have been randomly arrested. While the majority had been young or middle-aged men, women, children and older persons had also been confined. The Russian armed forces had detained individuals in makeshift facilities established in buildings they occupied, such as the basement of a school, an industrial facility, an agricultural facility, a train station, an airport and various dwellings. Victims had often not been informed of the reasons for their detention and these acts had not been reviewed by a judicial authority,

911.  During the initial period of the control by the armed forces of the Russian Federation of localities in Ukraine, many of the cases of unlawful confinement had been committed in the context of house-to-house searches aimed at locating supporters of the Ukrainian armed forces or finding weapons. When the authorities of the Russian Federation had controlled areas for longer periods of time, they had established dedicated detention facilities, used more diverse methods of torture and targeted persons who had refused to cooperate. According to victims and witnesses, a wider array of perpetrators had been involved in the commission of unlawful confinement, torture and sexual and gender-based violence, including perpetrators from the FSB, the National Guard of the Russian Federation and its subordinate units, and from armed groups from the “DPR” and the “LPR”. The Commission of Inquiry identified detention facilities in the Chernihiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine and in the Russian Federation where the authorities of the Russian Federation had detained large numbers of people for long periods of time. It focused its investigation on fourteen such places. Procedural requirements for detention had not been met. In numerous cases, the confinement had been prolonged, with the longest having been for over nine months. Relatives had not been informed and the reasons for confinement had not been properly communicated.

912.  Unlawful confinement had started at checkpoints or filtration points staffed by the armed forces of the Russian Federation, or on the street. The authorities of the Russian Federation had also detained people during house‑to-house searches or at their workplaces.

913.  The Commission of Inquiry found a pattern of widespread unlawful confinement in areas controlled by Russian armed forces. Wide categories of persons of different ages and occupations had been detained, at times in groups. In the cases examined, lawful reasons for the confinement of civilians often appeared to have been lacking. In all situations, procedural requirements for detention had not been met, which had also rendered detentions unlawful, and conditions had consistently been inhuman. The Commission of Inquiry noted that many people were still reported as missing.

921.  The Commission of Inquiry found that the Russian authorities had maintained a makeshift detention facility at the Alians-Service metal plant, often referred to as “Viknaland”, in the southern part of Dymer town, Kyiv region, when they had controlled the area between 5 and 28 March 2022. According to former detainees, women and men, sometimes more than forty at a time, had been held in a room of about 20 square metres making the space overcrowded. The Russian authorities had also established a makeshift detention facility at the abandoned Railway Polyclinic located at Zavodska Street 35b in Izium, Kharkiv region. It had visited the facility and had documented inhuman conditions, ill-treatment and torture there, based on testimonies of 5 people who had been held there for up to fourteen days in June-July 2022. According to former detainees, they had been held in several garages of about 16 square metres in size, with up to 16 people in one garage. The Commission of Inquiry further found that the Russian authorities had maintained a detention facility at the police department in Izium. It had documented detentions that had lasted from five to fifty days. The Russian authorities had also maintained a detention facility at the police department in Balakliia town, Kharkiv region. It had documented, based on accounts from 13 former detainees, that most detentions there had lasted about two weeks, while one man had been held there for ninety-five days. Finally, the Russian authorities maintained a detention facility at the police department in Enerhodar city, Zaporizhzhia region. Four detainees who had been confined in this facility between March and August 2022 had been interviewed; their periods of confinement had lasted from one to fifty-three days.

922.  The Commission of Inquiry found that the Russian authorities had transferred and held detainees from Ukraine in SIZO-1, in the city of Kursk in the Russian Federation. The facility fell under the Federal Penitentiary Service Directorate for the Kursk region. The Commission of Inquiry had documented ill-treatment and torture at this facility based on testimonies of 11 former detainees who had been confined there between March and October 2022. The Russian authorities had also transferred and held Ukrainian detainees in SIZO-2, in Novozybkov city in the Russian Federation. The facility fell under the Federal Penitentiary Service Directorate for the Bryansk region. The Commission of Inquiry had documented ill-treatment and torture in this facility, based on testimonies of 7 former detainees who had been confined there between March and September 2022, for a duration of up to forty-two days. Former detainees had said that they had seen several hundred detainees from Ukraine in the facility, both men and women.

923.  The Commission of Inquiry found evidence that the Russian authorities had deployed specific services and security forces from the Russian Federation to various detention facilities in areas they controlled in Ukraine. Locally recruited personnel worked under their authority. The Commission of Inquiry found that those services and forces had acted in a coordinated manner, and according to a specific division of labour, in the commission of torture.

924.  The Commission of Inquiry concluded that torture had been systematic on the basis of the following indications. First, while unlawful confinement had affected broad categories of persons, the victims of torture seemed to have been selected deliberately: they were those suspected of sharing information with the Ukrainian forces or supporting Ukrainian military efforts; and those who had a family member affiliated with the Ukrainian forces. Second, there had been an underlying motivation to punish, intimidate, coerce or obtain information from those perceived to be supporting the Ukrainian armed forces and authorities. Perpetrators had also called some of these particular victims “nazis”, “fascists” or “terrorists”, thereby providing additional pretexts and motivation to torture them. Third and most importantly, in areas under prolonged Russian control, torture methods had been present and applied which required advance preparation or planning, such as electric shocks including the method of the so-called “call to Lenin” (the application of electric shocks with a military field phone connected to an electricity cable, or with clips on feet or fingers or men’s genitals). Other common elements concerned the recurrent use of sexual violence as a form of torture in all types of detention facilities investigated and the general absence or denial of medical assistance in a context in which torture had been committed. The Commission of Inquiry concluded that, based on the combination of these elements, it had sufficient evidence to determine that the Russian authorities had acted pursuant to a coordinated state policy of torturing Ukrainian civilians and POWs.

925.  The victims were women and men, civilians and POWs; the majority were civilians. Victims of torture included local officials, Government personnel, veterans of the Ukrainian armed forces, Ukrainian law enforcement personnel, employees of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and volunteers evacuating civilians.

926.  The Commission of Inquiry had documented cases of torture in all nine regions in Ukraine where areas had been under Russian control, as well as in seven regions and one republic of the Russian Federation. An enumeration of the detention facilities where the Commission of Inquiry had confirmed the use of torture was annexed to the Commission of Inquiry’s October 2024 report. Torture was mainly committed in the context of detention and in conjunction with other crimes and human rights violations, such as unlawful confinement, wilful killings and sexual violence. In the cases investigated, the Commission of Inquiry found that the torture inflicted amounted to war crimes and to corresponding human rights violations. Torture was particularly severe against current or former members of the Ukrainian armed forces and associated persons and their relatives.

927.  The Commission of Inquiry found that Russian authorities had mostly used torture against civilians and POWs during confinement, including in improvised facilities at the location of military deployments, in seized buildings, medium-sized detention facilities in police stations or filtration points, and in well-established official penal colonies or pre-trial detention centres. In October 2024 the Commission of Inquiry published a list of 30 detention facilities (of which 21 were in occupied territory in Ukraine) held by Russian authorities where the Commission of Inquiry had confirmed the use of torture through investigations since its appointment (see the list in the annex to C.VII).

928.  Former detainees explained that in Ukraine, torture had been perpetrated by the Russian armed forces. In the Russian Federation, members of the special purpose units of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Russian Federation and regular personnel of that Service, referred to as prison guards, had committed torture. The victims stated that interrogations had been led, in addition, by members of the FSB. According to the victims and witnesses, the perpetrators had included members of the FSB; the armed forces, as well as the National Guard of the Russian Federation and its subordinate units; armed groups aligned with the Russian Federation from the so-called “DPR” and “LPR”; and personnel of the Wagner Group, at that time a private military company (Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia (dec.), § 200).

929.  In most cases investigated, Russian armed forces had confined large groups of Ukrainian POWs as they seized control of localities in Ukraine. They had transferred and detained them for periods spanning from nine to fifteen and a half months, in up to seven different locations in the Russian Federation and in Ukraine. Former detainees had consistently described the same harsh practices used in those facilities and in the same sequence, designed to scare, break, humiliate, coerce and punish. Interlocutors had stated that civilians and POWs had generally been subjected to similar treatment.

930.  Testimonies described a brutal so-called “admission procedure” applied upon the arrival of new detainees, with methods designed to instil fear and exert physical and psychological pressure. Detainees had generally been rushed into the premises and forced to run through a corridor lined with personnel from the detention facilities or in the yard while being beaten. Some had been beaten again if they fell. Beatings had been inflicted on various parts of detainees’ bodies, at times accompanied by electric shocks. Detainees had received orders to undress and to remain naked, for time periods going beyond possible security requirements. Some of them had already sustained serious injuries during this initial process. Harsh practices had been used routinely throughout the detention period. These had mainly consisted of beating sessions in the corridors or yards of the premises, in the showers or during regular searches of the cells. In many cases, special purpose units and regular personnel of detention facilities had beaten detainees after lining them up in corridors in a “stretch position”, with feet and hands apart. Some practices had included the use of sexual violence and the administering of electric shocks. Personnel of detention facilities had imposed a series of rules, such as a prohibition to sit or even lean against the wall during long periods, in some facilities also during the night. They had ordered detainees to squat, at times hundreds of times per day, or to remain in squat position for hours. Detainees had been made to walk hunched, with heads down at all times, to avoid looking at detention facility personnel. According to former detainees, personnel had imposed severe collective punishment against all detainees from the same cell in case of a perceived failure to respect the rules and orders, for instance if a detainee had not exercised correctly, had fallen or had attempted to sit. Punishment had often consisted of beating detainees lined up in the corridor.

931.  Interrogations had been accompanied by some of the most violent treatment documented, including severe beatings, sessions of electric shocks with tasers or wires attached to various body parts, at times in combination with water to amplify the effects, and burns to parts of the body. In addition to extracting information, interrogations had been aimed at eliciting false declarations implicating the detainees or persons they knew in crimes, particularly in alleged killings of civilians in Mariupol. In most of the cases, long interrogation sessions had taken place, sometimes lasting for days, which had been combined with torture, ill-treatment, threats and sexual and, in some cases, gender-based violence. Victims had often been brought to the places of detention or interrogation and their hands kept tied together or handcuffed, legs tied together and eyes blindfolded, and had had clothes or bags placed on their heads. Former detainees had reported that they had been asked about the movement, positions and supporters of the Ukrainian armed forces and locations of the Territorial Defence Forces and their numbers. Witnesses had described hearing the loud and “unbearable” screams of their co-detainees during interrogation sessions. Former detainees had reported that during interrogation and torture sessions, the Russian armed forces had referred to them as “fascists”, “nazis”, “livestock”, “terrorists”, or “supporters of terrorists preventing the liberation process”. On several occasions, they had forced the detainees to say “glory to Russia” and “glory to Putin”. One victim who had been in the Olenivka penal colony had reported that perpetrators held “denazification sessions”, during which they had forced the victims to lie down, stepped on their heads and legs and beaten them.

932.  The methods of torture and other ill-treatment had included prolonged beatings with rifle butts or batons; electric shocks; rape; threats of execution or mock executions; tying of hands or handcuffing and tying of legs; blindfolding with cloth, tape or bags placed over heads; placing a victim’s head in a barrel of water, called “drowning”; slashing various parts of the body; prolonged exposure to cold; and depriving detainees of sleep. Survivors had sustained short-term and long-term injuries and trauma such as broken facial bones, ribs, knees and fingers, and bruises or injuries leading to the inability to walk. In some instances the ill-treatment had been so severe that it had led to death. In some cases ill-treatment had been followed by execution.

933.  The Commission of Inquiry also collected testimonies concerning acts that amounted to sexual violence as a form of torture committed in 41 detention facilities of various types, in the Russian Federation and in areas of Ukraine under Russian control. Such acts included rape and attempted rape, sometimes with the use of objects, beatings, electric shocks, burns or other attacks on genital organs, forced nudity going beyond possible security requirements, threats of sexual mutilation and castration and intrusive body searches. According to testimonies, in each detention facility maintained by Russian authorities documented so far, perpetrators had used at least one or a combination of several of the above-mentioned methods. Some forms of sexual violence had been recurrent in certain detention facilities. The victims had been men and women, civilians and POWs. While in its initial reports the Commission of Inquiry described the systematic use of sexual violence as a form of torture by Russian authorities in detention facilities mostly against men, additional investigation of cases of rape and forced nudity from March, April and May 2022 revealed further actions aimed at humiliating and degrading women in detention. The acts perpetrated were so brutal that many victims needed surgery afterwards. Most POWs who had been detained by the Russian authorities had reported having been subjected to sexual violence. There were victims who had stated that perpetrators had acted as if they had expertise in inflicting suffering.

918.  The Commission of Inquiry found that Russian authorities had consistently violated procedural requirements relating to confinement. Documented detentions had lasted from three days to over nine months. In none of the examined cases had a judicial or administrative body reviewed the detention, as far as the Commission of Inquiry had been able to establish. At times, perpetrators had not communicated the reasons for the detention. In some cases, they had applied torture or psychological pressure to force those detained to acknowledge the allegations levelled against them. A local businessman who had been detained in Balakliia, in the Kharkiv region, had told the Commission of Inquiry that for fifteen days, he had not known the reasons for his detention.

940.  The Commission of Inquiry found that in detention facilities maintained by the Russian authorities, there had been a general absence or denial of medical assistance to detainees who had been injured or ill, or who had suffered traumas after torture. According to testimonies, in some detention facilities medical personnel had been involved in the violent treatment of detainees or negligent acts. In rare instances where medical assistance had been provided, it had often appeared insufficient or inadequate. Victims and witnesses had reported deterioration of the health of those affected, at times coupled with severe complications, and even death.

941.  Outside detention facilities, the Commission of Inquiry documented numerous cases of ill-treatment and torture before execution or death. For example, in a widely reported case from 23 March 2022, the head of Motyzhyn village, in the Kyiv region, had been detained and subsequently executed alongside with her family. A witness who had participated in the exhumation of the bodies had reported that the husband of the head of the village had broken hands, while her adult son had a gunshot wound in his knee.

942.  The Commission of Inquiry had also documented cases in which victims had been subjected to rape and sexual violence when Russian armed forces had broken into their homes in areas under their control. Sexual violence had been carried out during house-to-house searches for persons collaborating or sympathising with the Ukrainian authorities. The perpetrators had been Russian soldiers, who had identified women in a vulnerable situation during one or several initial searches of their houses.

943.  The Commission of Inquiry established that sexual violence, including rape, threat of rape, sexual slavery and forced nudity involving women, men, and girls, of an age range from four to over 80, had been carried out by members of the Russian armed forces across the areas of Ukraine they controlled and also in the Russian Federation, as well as, in some cases by members of the “DPR” and the “LPR”. Perpetrators had raped the women and girls in their homes or had taken them and raped them in unoccupied dwellings. According to the reports, sexual violence had often been carried out at gunpoint, with extreme brutality and accompanied by others acts of torture, such as beatings and strangulations. At times, the perpetrators had threatened to kill the victim or her family if she resisted. Indeed, in a number of instances the perpetrators had tortured or executed husbands and other male relatives. Family members, including children, had sometimes been forced to watch the perpetrators rape their loved ones. If they had not been in the same room, they had been able to hear the victims’ ordeal without the possibility of intervening.

951.  The Commission of Inquiry reported that, as of 27 January 2023, the prosecution services of Ukraine had been seized of 166 cases of sexual violence relating to the ongoing armed conflict, 11 of which concerned child victims. Some of the alleged perpetrators had been identified and proceedings against them had been initiated. In its report of October 2024, the Commission of Inquiry also noted that the Ukrainian authorities had opened 872 investigations concerning cases of torture in the context of the ongoing armed conflict and had issued indictments against 125 persons. The Commission of Inquiry’s request to the Russian Federation, asking whether it had conducted investigations concerning reports of torture by Russian authorities of Ukrainian nationals, both in Ukraine and in the Russian Federation, remained unanswered.

954.  The violent death of a close family member, and especially the knowledge that this had been preceded by torture or ill-treatment, had had a profound impact on the families. Those interviewed by the Commission of Inquiry had spoken of their pain, anger and struggle to come to terms with their loss. One woman whose husband had disappeared during the occupation of their village by the Russian armed forces and whose burned body had later been found in a cellar of a private house, had told the Commission of Inquiry, “I cry every single day. I had a husband, a good man, hardworking, caring, wonderful father and grandfather … I’ve lost my husband, my house, and my work. How should I go on living?”.

957.  In the same report, the OHCHR explained that it had corroborated a number of complaints of torture and ill-treatment of people in detention with a view to compelling them to confess to cooperating with the government of Ukraine as well as to provide information to or cooperate with the Russian armed forces. In particular, victims had reported that they had been kept tied and blindfolded for several days; beaten and kicked; subjected to mock executions; threatened with sexual violence; put in a closed metal box; forced to sing or shout glorifying slogans; provided with no or scarce food or water; and held in overcrowded rooms with no sanitation. When dealing with the large number of civilians whose bodies had been found in areas in Kyiv, including Bucha, the OHCHR noted that those perceived as providing support to Ukrainian forces had sometimes been tortured before being killed. At the end of May 2022, the OHCHR stated that it was aware of 108 allegations of acts of conflict-related sexual violence against women, girls, men and boys that had reportedly taken place in the Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Kherson, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia and Zhytomyr regions of Ukraine and in a detention facility in the Russian Federation. There were 78 allegations of rape, including gang rape, 7 of attempted rape, 15 of forced public stripping and eight of other forms of sexual violence, such as sexualised torture, unwanted sexual touching and threats of sexual violence. The alleged perpetrators in the vast majority of these cases had been from the ranks of the Russian armed forces and from Russian-affiliated armed groups. Out of all allegations received, 59 had allegedly occurred in the Kyiv region where Russian armed forces had been stationed. Rape, including gang rape, against civilian women was allegedly the most common form of conflict-related sexual violence committed by the Russian armed forces. In 18 cases victims had allegedly been killed or died after being raped. Out of the 108 cases, the OHCHR had verified 23 at the time of the report’s publication. They included rape, gang rape, torture, forced public stripping, threats of sexual violence and other forms of sexual violence. Nine cases of conflict-related sexual violence had been against women, 13 against men and 1 against a girl (threat of sexual violence). The OHCHR had also corroborated reports of Ukrainian POWs being subjected to so-called “admissions” on their arrival at the places of internment which included threats of sexual violence and other forms of ill‑treatment.

960.  The OHCHR also reported credible information received regarding the deaths of two Ukrainian servicemen as a result of torture. The first victim had reportedly been beaten and electrocuted to death by members of the Russian armed forces on 9 May 2022 at the Melitopol airfield. Two witnesses had told the OHCHR that the victim had been brought to the classroom of a pilot school showing signs of torture and had died soon after. The second victim had reportedly sustained lethal blows when guards had beaten POWs upon their arrival at the Volnovakha penal colony near Olenivka, Donetsk region, on 17 April 2022.

961.  The report referred to 407 documented cases of enforced disappearance (359 men, 47 women, 1 boy) of representatives of local authorities, journalists, civil society activists and other civilians, attributable to the Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups. Among the victims, 17 men and 1 woman had eventually been found dead.

962.  The report provided details of the torture and ill-treatment of civilian detainees by Russian security forces and affiliated armed groups in most areas under Russian control. Out of the 38 civilians released from detention (34 men, 4 women) and interviewed by OHCHR, 33 had reported having been subjected to torture and ill-treatment while in detention in order to force them to confess to having cooperated with the Ukrainian armed forces, to force them to cooperate with Russian armed forces or affiliated armed groups, or simply to intimidate them. In some cases, the torture had lasted for several hours and caused severe injuries. The female interviewees had not reported any specific forms of torture or ill-treatment, but had mentioned poor conditions of detention, including overcrowded cells and lack of adequate food or water. The OHCHR had corroborated the case of three civilian men who had been tortured and then killed in March 2022 in Stoianka, Kyiv region, a village controlled by Russian armed forces. The report also documented the cases of 2 men who had been detained in March 2022 and tortured to death in Kherson by the Russian armed forces; and the torture and ill-treatment of a group of 4 civilians, including 2 priests, who had volunteered to retrieve the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers believed to have been killed on Zmiinyi island on 25 February. The OHCHR further set out the details of 43 cases of conflict-related sexual violence verified by them during that period. Thirty of them had been committed by the Russian armed forces or law enforcement personnel.

963.  The majority of cases of conflict-related sexual violence documented by the OHCHR against women and girls had occurred while Russian armed forces were stationed in residential areas, close to their military positions. In these cases, women had been subjected to rape, including gang rape, by members of Russian armed forces. The majority of conflict-related sexual violence cases against men had occurred in the context of detention by Russian armed forces. Beatings in the genital area, electric shocks to genitals, forced nudity, unjustified cavity and body searches, and threats of rape against detainees and their loved ones had been used as a method of torture and ill-treatment to intimidate, punish or extract confessions. The OHCHR had also received a number of allegations of sexual violence and harassment of women at checkpoints during filtration processes organised by Russian armed forces personnel.

964.  The report documented 65 cases of forced recruitment by Russian‑affiliated armed groups during the reporting period of 1 February to 31 July 2022. According to information received, men between 19 and 55 years old, mainly students and employees of the public sector, were requested by their employers, military “commissariats” or university administrations to report to designated assembly points for enlistment. Refusal to be conscripted led to criminal prosecution.

968.  The OHCHR had also documented 214 cases of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions of civilians in territory of Ukraine that had been or remained under the occupation of the Russian Federation. The Russian armed forces had arrested victims in their homes, workplaces, in the street or at checkpoints during filtration processes. The OHCHR had documented 10 cases of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions of media workers and human rights defenders in territory occupied by the Russian Federation.

969.  The OHCHR had interviewed 89 individuals upon their release from captivity and had received additional information from relatives about their treatment in detention. Ninety-one percent of the individuals had reported acts amounting to torture and ill-treatment while deprived of their liberty. Members of the Russian armed forces and the FSB had reportedly tortured or otherwise ill-treated victims in order to force them to confess to providing assistance to the Ukrainian armed forces, to compel them to cooperate with the occupying authorities or to intimidate those with pro-Ukrainian views. The OHCHR had also documented the case of a 27-year-old nurse whose body bearing marks of serious ill-treatment had been discovered in April 2022 in the Kharkiv region, and the torture and ill-treatment of POWs before or during their interrogations by so-called “prosecutors” of Russian‑affiliated armed groups, either to compel them to confess, to testify against other individuals or to sign records of interrogations with statements that they had not provided.

970.  The OHCHR had also documented 109 cases of conflict-related sexual violence perpetrated by the Russian armed forces, law enforcement authorities or penitentiary staff, either in Russian-occupied territory of Ukraine or in the Russian Federation itself. Most of the documented cases had occurred either in the context of deprivation of liberty or in villages and communities that had been controlled by the Russian armed forces. In the majority of the cases of conflict-related sexual violence that had taken place in a context of deprivation of liberty it had been used as a form of torture or ill-treatment. It had consisted of rape, electrocution, burning, tying up and beating of genitals, forced nudity, forcing someone to watch or conduct sexual violence against another person, unjustified cavity or strip searches, homophobic insults and threats of sexual violence towards victims or their loved ones. Sexual violence had been directed mostly against male POWs, but also against detained civilian males. Sexual violence against women in detention had mainly consisted of unjustified strip searches or threats of sexual violence. Documented examples highlighted in the report included the sexual violence against two Ukrainian POWs in July 2022 in Olenivka and Donetsk respectively by Russian-affiliated armed groups; the repeated rape of a woman by more than one perpetrator while she had been detained by the FSB in July 2022 who had also unsuccessfully sought to force her to tell them the whereabouts of her son, a SBU officer; and the rape at gunpoint of a woman in the Kyiv region in March 2022.

972.  The OHCHR report examined, first, the treatment of Ukrainian POWs during their capture and evacuations. The OHCHR reported that it had documented the summary executions of 14 Ukrainian male POWs shortly after their capture by members of the Russian armed forces and Wagner Group military and security contractors. For example, in early April in Mariupol, Russian servicemen had tortured and then executed an officer of the National Guard of Ukraine when he had refused to provide the password to a radio station used by the Ukrainian armed forces. On 26 June members of the Wagner Group had captured six Ukrainian servicemen and had shot dead a prisoner after he stated having voluntarily joined the Ukrainian armed forces after the start of the Russian armed attack against Ukraine. On 11 September 2022 about 20 members of the Wagner Group had captured two wounded Ukrainian servicemen in the south of Bakhmut, Donetsk region. Shortly after, one of the Wagner Group contractors had executed one of the POWs because he was moaning in pain from his wounds, by shooting him three times in his chest and once in his head. The OHCHR had also analysed videos widely disseminated via social media on 28 July 2022, which appeared to show a member of the Russian armed forces kicking the head of a man wearing a uniform of the Ukrainian armed forces, cutting off his testicles with a utility knife and shooting him dead. Although the OHCHR had not been able to establish the identity of the victim, it said that the incident did not appear staged (ibid.).

973.  According to the interviews conducted with Ukrainian POWs who had been released by Russia from places of internment, 55 of them (52 men and three women) had reported that, upon their capture, they had been subjected to torture or ill-treatment including sexual violence. They reported being beaten with fists, tactical gloves with knuckles, rifle butts, shovels, batons or sticks; kicked; stabbed, subjected to mock executions with the use of firearms; subjected to electric shocks; strangled; held in cold temperature without clothes and threatened with mutilation. Some of them lost their teeth or fingers, had their ribs, fingers or noses broken, or suffered from pain for extended periods of times. The OHCHR had documented six cases of torture of Ukrainian POWs at the Melitopol Air Base, where Russian armed forces had been stationed. Many POWs had further reported poor and often humiliating conditions during their evacuation to transit camps and permanent places of internment, notably being packed into overcrowded vehicles, often half-naked, with hands tied behind their backs and lacking access to food, water and toilets.

974.  The OHCHR had, moreover, identified 48 places of internment located in Russian-occupied territory of Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Through the accounts of POWs who had spent time in these places of internment, the OHCHR had documented consistent patterns of torture and ill-treatment, poor detention conditions and lack of food, water and proper medical attention (ibid.).

975.  As regards conditions of internment, 137 Ukrainian POWs (24 women and 113 men) had reported overcrowded cells, lacking beds, fresh air and adequate sanitation, as well as cold temperatures during early spring, autumn and winter in 18 places of internment. Of the 203 Ukrainian POWs interviewed by the OHCHR, 157 POWs (139 men and 18 women) had reported poor quality of food or lack of food in 20 places of internment. The POWs had told the OHCHR that their food had been undercooked, rotten or contained sand or small rocks. The OHCHR had also identified, through 77 interviews, four places of internment where POWs had suffered from a lack of or poor quality of water (ibid.). Around one third of interviewed POWs had complained about the lack of medical attention during their internment. Nineteen POWs had complained that no medical care was provided despite requests. Ten POWs had reported that guards had beaten them or other POWs when they had requested medical assistance. The OHCHR had documented the deaths of four wounded or sick POWs due to lack of proper medical attention. The majority of Ukrainian POWs interviewed by the OHCHR had not been required to perform work while interned. However, the OHCHR had documented the case of eight POWs who had been forced to load artillery ammunition in the city of Alchevsk, in violation of international humanitarian law norms on appropriate labour of POWs. It had also received reports that a group of Ukrainian POWs from a penal colony near Olenivka had had to collect and load dead bodies in Mariupol in May and June 2022.

976.  One hundred seventy-three Ukrainian POWs (153 men and 20 women) had been subjected to torture or other forms of ill-treatment while interned by the Russian Federation. Their accounts had revealed widespread use of torture or other ill-treatment both to extract military information or testimony for tribunals in occupied territory, and to intimidate and humiliate POWs. The most widespread forms of torture or ill-treatment had been beatings by hand (usually with tactical gloves), batons, wooden hammers or other objects, and kicks to various parts of the body, but usually avoiding the head and other vital areas. Electric shocks had also been used, both with tasers and TA-57 military telephones. Other common forms of torture or ill‑treatment reported to the OHCHR had included stabbing, strangling, suffocation with a bag, applying pressure, hitting or stepping on wounded limbs, attacks or threats of attacks by dogs, threats with weapons, mock executions, placement in a hotbox or stress position, hanging from hands or legs, burning with cigarettes or lighters, exposure to cold temperatures, twisting or breaking of joints or bones, applying a tourniquet to cause pain with the POW fearing loss of limb due to constriction of blood circulation, and threats of mutilation by pressing sharp objects against POWs’ body parts. The OHCHR referred to 54 accounts from POWs of various forms of sexual violence, including forced nudity to which Ukrainian POWs had been subjected during their internment by Russia. In 27 cases (against men), perpetrators had targeted the victim’s genitalia during beatings or with electric shocks from a taser, or pulled them by a rope tied around their genitalia. Seventeen POWs (11 men and 6 women) had been subjected to unnecessary and humiliating cavity searches. Thirty-one POWs (18 men and 13 women) had been threatened with rape or other sexual violence in circumstances that made them believe such threats would be executed. The most common method of torture had been the so-called “admission” or “welcome beatings”, which 92 POWs had experienced upon their arrival at the place of internment. This had involved prolonged beatings, threats, dog attacks, tasering, stripping and use of stress positions. The OHCHR found that members of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Services had systematically engaged in this practice against POWs in pre-trial detention facilities in the Russian Federation. It had further documented the same systematic type of mistreatment in the Donetsk pre-trial detention facility and 23 other locations in the territory of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Federation. Even though the perpetrators had not usually targeted vital areas of the body, the OHCHR had documented five cases at two facilities where male POWs had lost their lives after being tortured.

986.  The OHCHR reported that 91 percent of the 178 interviewed civilian detainees had described being subjected to torture and ill-treatment. It said that it was “gravely concerned by widespread practices of torture or ill‑treatment by Russian armed forces, law enforcement and penitentiary authorities”. According to the OHCHR, torture and ill-treatment appeared to have been carried out to force victims to confess to providing assistance to Ukrainian armed forces, to compel them to cooperate with the occupying authorities or to intimidate those with pro-Ukrainian views. Methods had included punching and cutting detainees, putting sharp objects under their fingernails, hitting them with batons and rifle butts, strangling, waterboarding, electrocution, holding in stress positions for long periods of time, exposure to cold temperatures, deprivation of water and food, and mock executions. The OHCHR also documented 36 cases of sexual violence against 25 men and 11 women perpetrated by “actors” of the Russian Federation in the context of the arbitrary detentions. Forms of sexual violence had included rape, threats of rape against victims and their loved ones, electric shocks to genitals or nipples, beating of genitals, forced stripping and nudity and unjustified strip searches. As regards the conditions of detention, the OHCHR noted that detainees had been kept in cold and seriously overcrowded facilities without sanitation, water, food or medical care. They had been detained incommunicado. The uncertainty about the whereabouts and fate of the detainees had increased the suffering of their family members.

987.  The OHCHR also expressed grave concern about the summary execution of 77 civilians (72 men and 5 women) while they were arbitrarily detained and the death of one more male detainee as a result of torture, inhumane detention conditions and denial of medical care.

988.  Finally, the OHCHR had documented the cases of at least 57 civilian detainees (48 men and 9 women) who had reportedly been released during prisoner exchanges between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. The OHCHR noted that the detention of civilians and assignment of POW status to them solely for the purpose of carrying out a prisoner exchange may have amounted to hostage-taking.

992.  The OHCHR documented 6 cases of the summary execution of POWs which had occurred before 1 February 2023. It reported that on 9 March 2022, after taking control over the village of Sloboda, in the Chernihiv region, the Russian armed forces had captured two Ukrainian servicemen hiding in a civilian building. On 31 March 2022 the bodies of the two servicemen were found with gunshot wounds. In a later incident in September 2022, a member of a Russian-affiliated armed group had shot dead a Ukrainian POW whose leg had been wounded from stepping on a mine while he had been forced to perform dangerous labour near a frontline position. Another Ukrainian POW had been shot dead when he had refused to carry out the same dangerous labour. Both had been part of a group captured by separatist armed groups in the Donetsk region in August 2022. Other members of the group had reported that, for three months, they had been forced to carry heavy loads of ammunition and supplies to Russian frontline positions and to retrieve wounded Russian combatants. At least 5 of them had been injured while performing this labour. In total, since 24 February 2022, the OHCHR had documented the summary execution or torture to death of 21 Ukrainian POWs.

995.  Outside the context of deprivation of liberty, civilians interviewed by the OHCHR had provided detailed accounts of the Russian armed forces’ use of violence and repression during the initial stages of the occupation which had included, among others, sexual violence. The actions by the Russian armed forces in the first months of occupation had had the cumulative impact of creating a climate of fear: many residents had feared detention and torture, including sexual violence; they had feared sexual violence in residential areas.

996.  The report confirmed 634 cases of arbitrary detentions, including enforced disappearances, recorded by the OHCHR which had been carried out by the Russian armed forces from February to May 2022. The absence of any safeguards had led to arbitrary detention, often coupled with violence. Moreover, civilians who had posed no apparent security threat to the occupying Power had been among those detained. The majority of victims had been active or former public officials of local authorities, human rights defenders, civil society activists, journalists and media workers.

997.  The OHCHR had verified the summary execution of three male civilians in two incidents that had occurred in March 2022 in the Chernihiv region. In one case, the Russian armed forces had detained three brothers and subjected them to torture for several days before they had shot them in the head and thrown them into a pit. One of them had survived and had managed to extract himself from the pit.

998.  The OHCHR had also verified the execution of 14 Ukrainian servicemen hors de combat in seven incidents that had taken place during previous reporting periods. In one case described in the report, the Russian armed forces had captured a group of Ukrainian servicemen near the village of Zaitseve, Donetsk region, in August 2022. During evacuation, a Russian serviceman had executed one of the captured servicemen, who appeared simply not to have been moving fast enough (ibid.).

999.  The report described cases of torture and sexual violence which had occurred in 2022. Two women civilian detainees, who had been apprehended by Russian authorities in June and December 2022 and released in May 2024, had described being subjected to punches and beatings with batons and tasers in a detention facility as punishment for alleged disciplinary violations, and not receiving adequate medical assistance during their detention. In another case, the occupying authorities in Kherson had repeatedly subjected a detained man to beatings, suffocation, waterboarding, electric shocks, including to genitals, and threats of castration after his apprehension in September 2022. They had also raped the man anally with a metal object and simultaneously administered electric shocks to his anus and genitals (ibid.).

1000.  The OSCE Moscow Mechanism missions reported that they had received allegations of a large number of executions of civilians during the Russian occupation of settlements in the proximity of Kyiv, in particular Bucha. There were photos and videos of killed civilians, with their hands tied, in the streets and reports about a mass grave. In its 14 July 2022 report, the OSCE mission reported that it had documented “a rather large number of instances of targeted, extrajudicial killings of civilian persons and persons deprived of liberty, both prisoners of war and civilian detainees”. The mission of experts also reported having received several credible reports according to which Russian forces had ill-treated civilians using methods that amounted to torture. The mission had found credible evidence suggesting that torture and ill-treatment, including rape, sexual violence and sexual harassment, had been committed, mostly in the areas under the effective control of Russia.

1005.  The mission of experts noted that the Russian forces and administrations had established in 2022 an extended system of filtration, with the objective to register, map and collect personal data, biometric samples/DNA of the inhabitants in an area and to establish database with an overview of the population. Filtration facilities had been established throughout the territory. A detailed mapping of the filtration system in Donetsk showed that it could be seen as a four-tier system consisting of ad hoc registration points, facilities for holding those awaiting registration (for example, schools), interrogation centres (for extraction of information concerning the person and others) and finally prisons (typically correction colonies). The testimonies received by the mission indicated that while Russian armed forces had initially targeted individuals perceived as posing a security threat, over time a wider net had been cast to include any person perceived to oppose the temporary occupation. The filtration measures were aimed at identifying those who did not welcome the occupation or who worked for the authorities or military forces of Ukraine, or their relatives. The main goal of the detaining Power was to separate those who remained loyal to Ukraine from those who would accept Russian authority. For example, in Mariupol, filtration centres were established outside of the city and those who did not pass filtration were consequently not given permission to re-enter the city. Filtration could take place in many different types of facilities: registration points, camps or other places of internment, interrogation centres, torture chambers, or prisons. Both the FSB (including military counter‑intelligence) and the Russian penitentiary authority assigned their own officers to oversee filtration in particular regions.

1006.  The mission of experts detailed a large number of reported incidents of serious forms of ill-treatment to which civilians and Ukrainian POWs had been subjected by Russian forces. In one report it noted “a pattern of serious mistreatment” of local civilian inhabitants in areas under the temporary control of the Russian armed forces. The evidence in its possession suggested that such areas had usually been turned into lawless zones where civilians had been left at the complete mercy of the Russian soldiers occupying the area. Instances of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment had been reported from all territories which were or had been temporarily occupied by the Russian armed forces. The towns of Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel had become witness to some of the most extensive and serious instances of this type during the Russian occupation in the first weeks of the conflict. Five bodies found in the basement of a children’s sanatorium in Bucha had shown signs of mistreatment and there were suggestions that this basement might have served as a torture chamber during the Russian occupation. According to testimonies provided by the local inhabitants, Chechen forces (Kadyrovtsi) had been heavily involved in many of the atrocities. Reports from and about women being raped or otherwise sexually abused by members of the Russian armed forces, especially in newly occupied territory, had become abundant. According to the mission of experts, reports of sexual violence against children, including rape, had been particularly common, though the extent of this violence was difficult to assess due to the sensitive nature of the abuse, the well-known and understandable reluctance of victims to report it and the misinformation about this issue spread in the public space. One report cited the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Lyudmila Denisova, who had described the case of a one-year-old boy who had been raped by Russian soldiers and had later died in a village near Kharkiv. Other reported victims had included two ten-year-old boys, triplets aged nine, a two-year-old girl raped by two Russian soldiers, and a nine-month-old baby raped in front of his mother. (ibid.).

1008.  The report covered credible allegations about Ukrainian citizens abused and tortured while detained by Russian authorities in areas under Russian occupation. ODIHR had also received alarming reports of the extremely poor detention conditions and of conflict-related sexual violence committed by the Russian armed forces. The reported cases of rape had often been accompanied by beatings, humiliation and hate speech. The report contained statements of people who had witnessed seven or eight Russian soldiers taking a group of Ukrainian women into a basement of a multistorey building in Irpin and had heard “cries, shrieks, and different noises coming from the basement where the women had been taken”. The witnesses had assumed that the women had been raped while being there for about two hours. Four of the women had then been shot in the forehead by the Russian soldiers. When the bodies had been brought outside the building, the witnesses had seen that the victims were all naked and had bruises on their bodies. The Russian soldiers had then ordered the witnesses to load the bodies of the victims onto a truck and had set fire to them. The remaining women had stayed in the basement and one witness could still hear their screams and some of the women pleading with the Russian soldiers to “kill me, just shoot me”. According to the report, at the end of June 2022, Ukrainian law enforcement had launched 20 investigations into allegations of sexual violence committed by Russian forces.

1009.  In its second interim report which covered the period between 1 July and 1 November 2022, ODIHR pointed to a large and increasing body of evidence of civilians having been “unlawfully killed, including wilfully killed and summarily executed” in the territories that had been or remained under the control of the Russian Federation’s armed forces. In the Kyiv region alone, over 1,346 civilian bodies had reportedly been recovered by local authorities by 18 July 2022. Documented evidence had shown that, while some civilians had died as a direct result of hostilities, stress or lack of access to adequate medical care, a significant number of civilians had been arbitrarily or wilfully killed or subjected to summary execution by small arms and light weapons, stabbing or torture. Throughout the reporting period, new allegations of unlawful killings of civilians had continued to emerge from territories that had been or remained under Russian occupation. For instance, in the city of Izium, which had been occupied by Russian armed forces until September, local authorities had reported that some of 436 bodies exhumed from a mass burial site had had ropes around their necks, tied hands, broken limbs and gunshot wounds, and that all but 21 of the victims were civilians.

1010.  ODIHR provided statements of victims and witnesses of ill‑treatment in the form of beatings, electric shocks, suffocation, being forced into painful stress positions, mock executions and threats of mutilation. The apparent aim had been to coerce them into cooperation with the occupying forces or to extract information or confessions, but some victims had also been ill-treated for speaking Ukrainian in public or for taking photos of Russian soldiers. ODIHR noted that recent reports of alleged sexual violence by members of the Russian armed forces had surfaced from Kharkiv and Kherson regions, as the Ukrainian armed forces had begun regaining control of these territories.

1011.  In her “Memorandum on the human rights consequences of the war in Ukraine” of 8 July 2022, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights (“the Commissioner”) set out the findings of her visit to certain areas located to the northwest of Kyiv, which had previously been under the control of the Russian troops or witnessed heavy fighting. During her visit she had been confronted with “compelling evidence of patterns of violations of the right to life, including arbitrary killings”. She referred to the discovery of a very large numbers of bodies of civilians after the liberation of areas in the Kyiv region. According to the information provided to the Commissioner, some of those victims had been found with their hands tied and had reportedly been tortured or ill-treated prior to being executed. The Commissioner had talked to witnesses and relatives of victims who had provided her with testimonies regarding the killings perpetrated by Russian soldiers.

1012.  The Commissioner had also received numerous reports of war‑related sexual violence allegedly committed by Russian troops and had been confronted with compelling evidence of patterns of violations of the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment, in particular gender-based violence and war-related sexual violence. The reports of war-related sexual violence had included rape, gang rape, threats of sexual violence and coercion to watch an act of sexual violence being committed against a partner or a child, allegedly committed by Russian troop members at various locations in Ukraine under their control. According to the Commissioner, the visit had provided her with the “opportunity to observe first-hand the traces of some such egregious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law”.

1013.  The Commissioner highlighted hundreds of cases of enforced disappearance, abductions, incommunicado detention and missing persons amongst human rights defenders, local officials, journalists, volunteers, civil society activists and ordinary civilians in areas of Ukraine under the control of the Russian Federation.

1016.  Numerous reports by HRW, World Organisation Against Torture, Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International and other NGOs have corroborated and further documented acts of ill-treatment, torture and sexual violence of Ukrainian civilians and POWs at the hands of Russian armed forces (ibid.).

1027.  A significant number of civilians and Ukrainian soldiers who were hors de combat had been killed between 11 May 2014 and 23 February 2022. The civilian victims had included mainly individuals with vocal “pro-unity views” and those who were believed to have such views, as well as those who had, or were believed to have, provided support to Ukrainian forces. A number of those civilians had been killed with gunshots to the head; some of the bodies bore signs of torture and their hands had been tied behind their backs. Some of the executions had been carried out by “LPR” and “DPR” officials under the pretext of official authority and following the imposition of a death sentence at the conclusion of a “judicial process”.

1050.  The applicant Ukrainian Government argued that since 2014 there had been a significant number of incidents of torture and ill-treatment including beatings, dry and wet asphyxiation, electrocution, sexual violence on men and women, positional torture, deprivation of water, food, sleep and toilet, isolation, mock executions, prolonged use of handcuffs and hooding; and threats of death or further torture or sexual violence, or harm to family members. The victims had included civilians, civil servants, members of local authorities, journalists, activists, protestors and captured Ukrainian soldiers. In most cases the perpetrators had been separatists from the “DPR” and the “LPR” and officials of the FSB. The ill-treatment had taken place, in particular, in Donetsk, Luhansk, Sloviansk, Makiivka, Ilovaisk, Horlivka and Yenakiieve, and surrounding areas under “DPR” and “LPR” control. The purpose of such treatment was “to extract confessions or information, or to otherwise force detainees to cooperate, as well as for punitive purposes, to humiliate and intimidate, or to extort money and property”.

1051.  Moreover, since 2014 Ukrainian civilian and military prisoners had been kept in extremely poor conditions. A large number of detainees had been detained in crowded conditions without sufficient beds, ventilation and, during cold periods, heating. There had been a lack of sufficient provision of food, water and medical care and the sanitation facilities had been insufficient and very poor.

1052.  After 24 February 2022 Russian forces had committed breaches of Article 3 in Ukraine on a staggering scale. The accumulations of breaches were demonstrative of a widespread and interconnected pattern of systemic and flagrant disregard for Convention rights. Indeed, the individual cases specifically referred to in the memorial were mere illustrations of the multitude of violations of the Convention perpetrated since the start of the invasion. It was impossible to describe each violation in detail. The OHCHR had found that detainees “in most areas under Russian control”, and in particular POWs “during all periods of internment”, had been subjected to ill‑treatment.

1053.  By way of specific example, the applicant Ukrainian Government alleged that there had been widespread torture of civilians during the Russian occupation of towns and villages, including Bucha, Izium, Motyzhyn, Husarivka and Vorzel. Bodies of many of the victims discovered in mass graves, pits, inside houses and basements and in other places after the liberation bore signs of serious ill-treatment and had been disfigured and mutilated.  In Izium, between March and early September 2022 hundreds of people had been detained and systematically subjected to serious ill-treatment consisting of electric shocks, waterboarding, severe beating, threats, rape and threats of rape, and being forced to hold stress positions for extended periods. More than 450 bodies had later been discovered in a mass grave, many showing signs of torture. A total of ten Russian “torture chambers” had been discovered in the Kharkiv region alone after its liberation.

1054.  From May 2022 and for a period of several months, at least 4,000 and perhaps as many as 10,000 residents of Mariupol had been detained in prisons in Donetsk with little or no access to water, food or medical treatment and in conditions as terrible and inhuman as those in a concentration camp. Furthermore, between 5 and 30 March 2022, Russian soldiers had forced around 300 civilians at gunpoint into the basement of a school in the village of Yahidne where they had had little food or water, no electricity and no toilets. During their captivity, seven of the detainees had been executed and ten others had lost their lives as a result of the harsh conditions.

1055.  The treatment described above had not only been in breach of Article 3 of the Convention in respect of the direct victims to whom it had been meted out, but had also caused suffering for those witnessing it, in breach of the same provision. Moreover, the practice of abductions and forced disappearances had caused suffering reaching the minimum level of severity for Article 3, including the suffering of close relatives of the victims.

1056.  Ukrainian POWs had also been subjected to ill-treatment in breach of Article 3 of the Convention. POWs who had been returned to Ukraine as part of prisoner exchanges had severe injuries; some had amputated limbs and sepsis, indicative of severe ill-treatment. The ill‑treatment had consisted of physical, sexual and mental abuse including beatings, electrocutions, threats and the withholding of medical assistance. Following their release as part of prisoner exchanges, a number of soldiers from the Azov Regiment had testified that they had witnessed prisoners being beaten until their bones were broken.

1057.  In addition, the respondent State had continued to perpetrate conflict-related sexual violence in occupied areas, including rape, amounting to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention. The systematic use of rape as a weapon of war by Russia in Ukraine had been documented in the reports of many intergovernmental organisations and NGOs. Investigators had gathered evidence of widespread sexual violence, including gang rape and assaults at gunpoint by Russian forces. Post-mortem examinations on the bodies of women buried in mass graves indicated that some of them had been raped before being killed by Russian forces. Victims of rape included underage girls, very young children and even a baby. In many cases close family members, including children, had been forced to witness such attacks, thereby subjecting them to ill‑treatment within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention.

1058.  The respondent Government did not take part in the present proceedings on the merits of application nos. 8019/16, 43800/14 and 28525/20 and the admissibility and merits of application no. 11055/22  (see paragraph 142 above). At the separate admissibility stage of the present proceedings, they challenged in general terms the evidence submitted by the applicant Ukrainian Government (Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia (dec.), §§ 408-14 and 818).

1059.  No submissions have been received from them in respect of the period after 26 January 2022, the date of the separate admissibility hearing in the present case, save for their brief response to the Court’s request for information in the context of its 1 March 2022 indication under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court (see paragraphs 9 and 140-141 above).

1060.  Article 3 makes no provision for exceptions and no derogation from it is permissible under Article 15 § 2 even in the event of a public emergency threatening the life of the nation: even in the most difficult circumstances, the Convention prohibits in absolute terms torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, irrespective of the conduct of the person concerned (El-Masri v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [GC], no. 39630/09, § 195).

1061.  Ill-treatment must attain a minimum level of severity if it is to fall within the scope of Article 3. The assessment of this minimum is relative: it depends on all the circumstances of the case, such as the duration of the treatment, its physical and mental effects and, in some cases, the sex, age and state of health of the victim. Further factors include the purpose for which the treatment was inflicted together with the intention or motivation behind it (El‑Masri, 196). In the context of deprivation of liberty the Court has consistently stressed that, to fall under Article 3, the suffering and humiliation involved must go beyond that inevitable element of suffering and humiliation connected with detention (Muršić v. Croatia [GC], no. 7334/13, § 99, 20 October 2016).

1062.  In determining whether a particular form of ill-treatment should be qualified as torture, consideration must be given to the distinction between this notion and that of inhuman or degrading treatment. The Court has explained that, by means of this distinction, it attaches a special stigma to deliberate inhuman treatment causing very serious and cruel suffering. In addition to the severity of the treatment, there is a purposive element which defines torture in terms of the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering with the aim, inter alia, of obtaining information, inflicting punishment or intimidating (Salman v. Turkey,  [GC], no. 21986/93, § 114; Ireland v. the United Kingdom, 18 January 1978, § 167). The nature of torture covers both physical pain and mental suffering, and the fear of physical torture may itself constitute mental torture. What is particularly important in this respect is the severity of the pressure exerted and the intensity of the mental suffering caused (Gäfgen v. Germany [GC], no. 22978/05, § 108).

1063.  The Court has found that the rape of a detainee by an official of the State is an especially grave and abhorrent form of ill-treatment given the ease with which the offender can exploit the vulnerability and weakened resistance of his victim, and thus may amount to torture (Aydın v. Turkey, 25 September 1997, § 83; Maslova and Nalbandov v. Russia, no  839/02, § 108, 24 January 2008; Zontul v. Greece, no. 12294/07, §§ 88-92, 17 January 2012). Victims experience the acute physical pain of forced penetration, which leaves them feeling debased and violated both physically and emotionally (Aydın, § 83; Maslova and Nalbandov, § 107). The Court has explained that rape leaves deep psychological scars on the victim which do not respond to the passage of time as quickly as other forms of physical and mental violence (Aydın, § 83, and Zontul, § 88).

1064.  The State must ensure that a person is detained in conditions which are compatible with respect for human dignity, that the manner and method of the execution of the measure do not subject him to distress or hardship of an intensity exceeding the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention and that, given the practical demands of imprisonment, his health and well‑being are adequately secured. When assessing conditions of detention, account has to be taken of the cumulative effects of these conditions, as well as of specific allegations made by the applicant. The length of the period during which a person is detained in the particular conditions also has to be considered (Muršić, §§ 99 and 101).

1065.  The Court has found that strip searches may be necessary on occasion to ensure prison security or to prevent disorder or crime. They should be carried out in an appropriate manner with due respect for human dignity and must be necessary and justified. Where the manner in which a search is carried out has debasing elements which significantly aggravate the inevitable humiliation of the procedure, Article 3 has been found to be engaged (Iwańczuk v. Poland, no. 25196/94, § 58‑59, 15 November 2001).

1066.  The general principles concerning the applicability of Article 3 to the suffering of relatives of victims of human rights violations are set out above (see paragraphs 538-544).

1067.  The Court has explained that in its interpretation of the respondent State’s obligations it will have regard to relevant provisions of international humanitarian law in accordance with its duty of harmonious interpretation (see paragraphs 429-430 above).

1068.  International humanitarian law contains rules on the treatment of civilians and persons who are hors de combat. Article 32 GC IV prohibits measures of such a character as to cause the physical suffering of civilians, including torture, mutilation and “any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents”. Articles 5 and 27 GC IV provide for the humane treatment and protection from acts of violence of civilians not participating in the conflict (ibid.). Article 27 requires respect for their persons and their honour and explicitly stipulates that women are to be protected against rape and any form of indecent assault. Articles 76-77 AP I require protection for women and children against rape, enforced prostitution or any other form of indecent assault. Article 12 GC I and Article 13 GC III require soldiers who are hors de combat to be treated humanely and be protected against acts of violence. Mutilation and torture are explicitly prohibited. Article 14 GC III provides that POWs are in all circumstances entitled to “respect for their persons and their honour”. Article 75(2) AP I also prohibits torture, mutilation and outrages upon personal dignity, in particular “humiliating and degrading treatment, enforced prostitution and any form of indecent assault”. Under all three relevant Geneva Conventions, torture or inhuman treatment and wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health are considered grave breaches of international humanitarian law.

1069.  Article 25 GC III, Article 76 GC IV and Article 75(5) AP I provide for the accommodation of detained women in separate quarters from those of men. International humanitarian law further provides that detainees be accommodated in quarters that safeguard their health and must enjoy conditions of food, clothing and hygiene sufficient to keep them in good health (see notably B151-52 and 156). Article 11 AP I provides that the physical or mental health and integrity of persons who are in the power of the adverse Party or who are deprived of liberty shall not be endangered by any unjustified act or omission.

1070.  The evidence shows beyond any doubt that from the start of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the armed separatists used violence against detainees, both civilian and military, in areas under the effective control of the Russian Federation. In relation to the period between 11 May 2014 and 24 February 2022, the OHCHR regularly reported incidents of violence and ill-treatment which had taken place across “DPR” and “LPR” territory in the context of abductions, deprivations of liberty, interrogations and forced entry into civilian homes. Many of these examples are described in the summary of evidence above (see, for example, paragraphs 817, 838, 845, 876 and 878). The OHCHR referred in June 2016 to a network of places of deprivation of liberty where people were tortured and ill-treated and subjected to inhuman conditions of detention (see paragraph 841 above). Its reports between 2014 and 2021 regularly referred to new allegations concerning the relevant reporting periods (see, for example, paragraphs 856, 885 and 887 above). It repeatedly expressed serious concern about its lack of access to places of detention and the delayed reporting by victims, but observed that interviews with prisoners transferred to government-controlled territories confirmed the allegations it was continuing to receive (see, for example, paragraph 871 above). In a thematic report from July 2021, the OHCHR observed that torture and ill-treatment had become less common after 2016 but noted that such practices had nonetheless continued to occur and were carried out systematically in some places of detention within the territory controlled by the “DPR” and the “LPR” (see paragraph 888 above). It estimated that around 2,500 conflict-related detainees had suffered torture and ill-treatment by the separatists in territory controlled by the “DPR” and the “LPR” since the conflict began (see paragraph 888 above).

1071.  A great deal more evidence is available as to the conduct of the Russian armed forces during their occupation of areas of Ukraine in the period after 24 February 2022. This evidence has come to light following the recovery by Ukrainian armed forces of previously occupied areas and with the gradual release of detainees. The disturbing details that emerge from the reports of the Commission of Inquiry are corroborated by further investigations. The evidence shows a significant increase in the scale and in the gravity of acts of ill-treatment, both in detention and outside formal detention facilities, in improvised “torture chambers” or in the victims’ homes or villages. The Commission of Inquiry identified a division of labour among various groups of officials involved in inflicting torture in detention and concluded that torture was a coordinated State policy of the Russian Federation used in respect of Ukrainian civilians and POWs. It was used to extract confessions, to instil fear and exert physical and psychological pressure, and to break, humiliate, coerce, and punish (see paragraphs 923 and seq. and 941 et seq. above).

1072.  The nature of the violence to which civilians and POWs were subjected at the hands of the agents of the Russian Federation between May 2014 and September 2022 is described in detail in the reports before the Court. Beatings, forced nudity and intimate searches conducted during filtration and in detention places were commonly reported. There are also consistent reports of mock execution, the cutting off of body parts and the application of electric shocks to victims, including to intimate areas of their bodies. Some detainees reported being forced to remain in a position, squatting or kneeling, for hours. There are accounts of POWs being forced to ingest their insignia. The evidence also shows that detainees were forced to witness the severe beatings and, sometimes, the summary executions of others. Witnesses described to the Commission of Inquiry hearing the loud and unbearable screams of co-detainees (see, for example, paragraphs 794, 817, 824, 896 and 1008 above).

1073.  There is evidence of a widespread and systemic use of sexual violence by armed separatists and Russian troops, in respect of men and women, old and young (documented victims range from four to 80 years old) (see paragraphs 933-938 above). Rapes were committed at gunpoint, with extreme brutality and accompanied by acts of torture, such as beatings, strangling or electric shocks. Women and men were often subjected to sexual violence and rape in detention. Such acts are a means of inflicting pain, terror and humiliation (see, for example, paragraphs 942 and 951 above).

1074.  There is also extensive evidence of rape outside classical situations of detention, largely perpetrated on women and girls but also on men and boys. The victims were assaulted in their own homes or in other unoccupied homes or shelters. In some cases, victims were gang-raped by Russian soldiers. In other instances, soldiers raped victims several times or over a lengthy period, exercising a degree of power and control over the victim which the Commission of Inquiry considered amounted to sexual slavery. Women and girls were raped in front of husbands, boyfriends and children. Children were raped and sexually assaulted in front of their parents. Family members who tried to intervene to stop the attacks were killed. Survivors and their families remain deeply traumatised by the ordeal they endured. Some survivors of rape or relatives forced to watch someone close to them being raped have expressed suicidal thoughts or have even attempted suicide. The evidence shows that such acts were perpetrated by armed separatists in eastern Ukraine from 2014. The available evidence points to the fact that, following the Russian invasion of 2022, the frequency of attacks on civilians involving sexual violence sharply escalated.

1075.  Civilians and POWs were also subjected to repeated threats of violence, including threats of summary execution. The perpetrators threatened to harm the victims’ close family members, including threatening to rape their children. The Court underlines that these threats were made in a context where many of the victims had witnessed sexual violence or summary execution being perpetrated on others, with no regard for the age or particular vulnerabilities of victims. Moreover, the impugned conduct took place within an overall context of lawlessness and the commission of violence with impunity in occupied areas in Ukraine. The victims were aware that these were no empty threats and that the violence threatened would likely be perpetrated on them or on their loved ones, including their children.

1076.  In the face of the overwhelming evidence, it is indisputable that there were multiple, repeated instances of the ill-treatment of civilians and POWs by separatists and the Russian armed forces and authorities in the occupied areas in Ukraine. The Court has no doubt that such treatment amounted, at the very least, to inhuman and degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention. The Court is moreover satisfied that there was a pattern of treatment, encompassing the practices outlined above, which amounted to deliberate inhuman treatment causing very serious and cruel suffering. It involved the intentional infliction of severe pain and suffering with the aim, inter alia, of obtaining information, inflicting punishment and intimidating and humiliating the victims. Those subjected to this treatment were aware of the horrific acts of violence that had been perpetrated against other civilians and POWs and must have been terrified that they or their loved ones would be killed in the most appalling circumstances. As noted above, the protection of civilians and military personnel hors de combat is central to the rules governing armed conflict (see paragraphs 1042 and 1068-1069 above). There is no possible justification under international humanitarian law for the treatment described in the examples to which the Court has referred above.

1077.  The prevalence of sexual violence and rape by Russian soldiers in occupied territory is especially abhorrent. The evidence shows the extreme violence of the circumstances in which women were raped or sexually assaulted and the intent to terrorise, humiliate and debase them (see, for example, paragraph 1074 above). The widespread rape of women and girls in occupied areas is in flagrant breach of Article 27 GC IV (see paragraph 1068 above). In addition to the impact on the direct victims, the raping of women and girls in the context of an armed conflict has also been described as a means for the aggressor to symbolically and physically humiliate the defeated men. Rape or the threat of rape is also used to drive communities off lands or to heighten terror during attacks. The evidence also attests to the horrific sexual violence frequently perpetrated upon male detainees (see, for example, paragraphs 934 and 937 above). The sexual abuse, torture and mutilation of male detainees is often carried out to attack and destroy their sense of masculinity or manhood. Abuse and torture of female members of a man’s family in front of him is used to convey the message that he has failed in his role as protector. These forms of humiliation and violence take on powerful political and symbolic meanings. The deliberate initiation and endorsement of these acts by military commanders and political leaders underscores the significance of these acts as more than random assaults.

1078.  The sexual assaults and rape of civilians in communities across occupied territory in Ukraine, carried out with complete impunity, left women and men powerless to protect themselves and their families and living in fear. The Court is persuaded that sexual violence and rape was deployed in Ukraine following the February 2022 invasion as part of a military strategy to dehumanise, humiliate and break the morale of the Ukrainian population, as individuals and as a community, and to assert dominance over Ukrainian sovereign territory. The systematic rape of women as a weapon of war causes unthinkable physical, emotional and psychological suffering. Victims risked double victimisation, not only sustaining potentially dangerous and long‑lasting injuries and trauma but also running the risk of stigmatisation and rejection by their families and communities. The ICC Statute defines rape committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population as a crime against humanity. The Court finds that the use of rape as a weapon of war, as outlined above, is an act of extreme atrocity that amounts to torture.

1079.  The Court accordingly finds beyond any doubt that there was a pattern of ill-treatment of civilians and POWs in occupied areas of Ukraine between 11 May 2014 and 16 September 2022 that qualified as torture and inhuman and degrading treatment, within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention.

1080.  There is also ample evidence for the period from 11 May 2014 to 16 September 2022 of inadequate detention conditions. The reports and witness statements refer to the poor conditions in which civilians and POWs were very frequently detained. Detainees were often held in the basements of seized buildings and other premises entirely unadapted for detention purposes. These premises lacked heat, ventilation and adequate sleeping materials for those being detained. The reports consistently refer to the absence of necessary medical assistance and inadequate access to food and water. There is reference to the cramped and overcrowded rooms in which detainees were held and the humiliating sanitary arrangements. Men and women were frequently detained together. Detainees had restricted contact with families and in many cases were held incommunicado. The conditions of detention disclosed by the numerous reports and accounts of victims were in blatant contravention of the applicable provisions of international humanitarian law (see paragraph 1069 above). The Court finds that these conditions of detention amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 3.

1081.  Finally, in respect of the alleged suffering of the family members of those who were abducted or disappeared after 24 February 2022, the Court underlines that such abductions and disappearances of family members occurred in a context of mass arbitrary detentions and the systematic abuse of those in detention. Those abducted risked summary killing, torture including sexual violence, and inhuman and degrading treatment. Their family members were all too aware of the likely fate of relatives who had been taken into detention by the authorities in occupied areas or had disappeared. The general feeling that human rights violations were being committed with impunity was an important source of fear and anxiety. The wife of one detained person said that the knowledge that a person could be detained and killed at any moment without respect for the rule of law was terrifying (see paragraph 953 above). The Commission of Inquiry documented numerous cases in which relatives had reached out to Russian authorities regarding the whereabouts of missing family members and had received no response (see paragraph 919 above). Those interviewed by the Commission of Inquiry spoke of their pain, anger and struggle to come to terms with their loss, being aware that there was no possibility for them to seek information or obtain an investigation into the circumstances of the disappearance, abduction and other possible human rights violations in respect of their relatives (ibid.). The Court finds that in the exceptional circumstances of this case, in view of the horrific violence being perpetrated on a massive scale against detainees in occupied areas, the flagrant, continuous and callous disregard of the obligation to account for the whereabouts and fate of missing relatives caused suffering which reached the threshold of inhuman and degrading treatment contrary to Article 3.

1082.  The Court is accordingly satisfied that there is overwhelming evidence of acts in breach of Article 3 of the Convention in occupied areas in Ukraine between 11 May 2014 and 16 September 2022. This evidence enables it to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that there existed an accumulation of identical or analogous breaches of Article 3 during the period under consideration which are sufficiently numerous and interconnected to amount to a pattern or system of inhuman and degrading treatment and torture. The Commission of Inquiry has described some of these acts as amounting to a coordinated State policy of torture. The Court finds that the organised and systemic practices cannot have taken place without the awareness and involvement of senior Russian government figures. For these reasons and the further reasons set out below, there is no doubt that the requirement of official tolerance is also met in respect of these acts.

1083.  The Court accordingly finds the Russian Federation responsible for an administrative practice of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of Article 3 of the Convention in occupied territory in Ukraine in the period between 11 May 2014 and 16 September 2022.

1103.  The applicant Ukrainian Government complained of an administrative practice in eastern Ukraine from 11 May 2014 consisting of the widespread detention of civilians by “DPR” and “LPR” authorities. Such detention had been targeted at perceived supporters of Ukrainian unity, religious minorities and journalists. In violation of Article 5 and applicable international humanitarian law, detention had not been in accordance with applicable Ukrainian law or a regular procedure prescribed by the occupying Power. Moreover, separatist administrations had routinely failed to provide a legitimate reason for detention or any record of it. Victims had routinely been held incommunicado and/or in inhumane conditions and subject to treatment amounting to torture.

1251.  After the invasion of 24 February 2022 the OHCHR reported that in the territory occupied by the Russian Federation or controlled by Russian armed forces or affiliated armed groups, the overall environment for religious minorities had remained highly restrictive from February to July 2022.

1252.  In addition to the cases included in the summary of evidence in respect of the complaints under Articles 2-5 of the Convention (paragraphs 893-1022 above), the OHCHR reported that a Baptist pastor from Kharkiv region had been abducted in May 2022 by three masked men in uniforms of the Russian armed forces. The pastor had been taken to a police station and subjected to severe beatings. While being tortured, he had been told that “there [could] be only the Russian Orthodox Church in the area” and that “there [was] no place for a Baptist church”. No information on his fate and whereabouts had been provided to his relatives and his detention had not been acknowledged by the occupation authorities. He had subsequently been released without conditions. The OHCHR also reported on the abduction and ill-treatment in three different facilities in the Kherson region of a pro-Ukrainian priest from August 2022 to May 2023.

1253.  Forum 18 continued to report on harassment and intimidation of religious communities in occupied territory throughout 2022. It reported that in March 2022 a Crimean Tatar and Imam of the Muslim Birlik (Unity) Mosque community in the village of Shchaslyvtseve, Kherson region, had been detained and tortured in a basement by Russian occupation forces. During his detention, a man (call sign “Bars”) in plain clothes had insisted that he cooperate with the occupation authorities. “Bars” had also insisted that the imam cut the community’s ties to the Spiritual Administration in Kyiv and subjugate his mosque community to the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Crimea in the occupied Ukrainian city of Simferopol. After the imam’s release, the Russian occupation forces had come to inspect the Birlik (Unity) Mosque. In October 2022 the mosque remained closed.

1316.  In its report for 1 August 2020 to 31 January 2021, the OHCHR expressed concern about the arbitrary detention of individuals in the “DPR” and the “LPR” for their social media posts. In one case, a blogger had reportedly been detained for his articles on arbitrary detention and torture by members of armed groups in the “DPR”, the content of which the authorities had referred to as extremist. In another case, a person had been charged with crimes for his social media posts, and released only after spending nine months in detention following a court hearing at which the judge found him guilty and imposed a fine.

1327.  The OSCE Moscow Mechanism’s mission of experts published a report on 13 April 2022 on violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine since 24 February 2022. The mission had received information indicating that the standards of the protection of journalists had repeatedly been violated in the conflict. It had received several credible reports that Russian forces had arrested journalists, without following any procedure, and had ill-treated them using methods that amounted to torture. The report also noted that the OHCHR had documented the arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance of 21 journalists and civil society activists who had vocally opposed the invasion in the Kyiv, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions. Five of the journalists and three of the activists had been allegedly released. The whereabouts of the other individuals remained unknown. The mission noted that the OHCHR findings had been consistent with 29 cases documented by various NGOs and reported to the mission. The mission reported that since 24 February 2022 five journalists had been killed and many more injured by the Russian forces. It suggested that at least some of them had involved intentional targeting of journalists. There had also been many cases where journalists had been detained by the Russian forces.

1392.  The OHCHR reported that on 1 July 2014 a group of 10 armed men in camouflage who had presented themselves as “self-defence” (samooborona) had abducted a local entrepreneur from his parents’ home in the Donetsk region. The members of the armed group had tried to extort money from the victim before his abduction. He had been brought to the basement of a seized building being used as the headquarters of the “NKVD Komendatura” armed group. The perpetrators had reportedly invited a notary into the building and forced the victim to rescind ownership over all his property to the leader of the armed group, call-sign “Vasilievich”. When the victim had refused to do so, he had been told that Chechen fighters would rape his wife and underage daughters in front of him. On the same day, the leader of the armed group and an unidentified man had stormed into the apartment of the victim’s wife, and threatened her and their underage daughter with a knife and had stolen all their valuables.

1393.  The OHCHR reported cases in 2014 of armed groups using tank shelling to damage civilian homes, explosive devices to completely destroy a logistics business and grenade launchers to shell houses and shops in occupied areas. For example, on 27 June 2014 a man had allegedly been detained by armed groups and subsequently interrogated and tortured by three persons who had identified themselves as representatives of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Federation. He had alleged that the armed groups had destroyed his logistics business including 30 trucks, several stocks, garages, cars and equipment worth 20,000,000 Ukrainian hryvnia (UAH) (approximately 780,000 United States dollars (USD)) in total. According to witnesses, the armed groups had used explosive devices jeopardising the lives of peoples residing nearby.

1394.  The OHCHR reported that in July 2014 a businessman in Druzhkivka had been kept for five days by an armed group and tortured for resisting the expropriation of his business and refusing “to cooperate with new authorities”. His wife and daughter had been threatened with sexual abuse and his business and property had been looted.

1395.  On 10 August 2014, according to the OHCHR, eight armed men in camouflage without insignia stormed the house of local volunteers who were providing food to Ukrainian soldiers. After searching and looting the house, the armed men had taken away a man and a woman. Over the following ten days the armed men had returned three times to the house and had looted it, holding the 75-year-old father of one of the abducted at gunpoint. In the same village, on 22 August 2014 four members of a family had been executed outside their house for their alleged assistance to the Ukrainian armed forces, and their property had then been looted.

1396.  The OHCHR reported that on 25 September 2014 in a village in the Donetsk region, a woman and two of her colleagues (a man and a woman) had been abducted at their workplace by armed men from the “Bezler group”, led by a local resident. They had been taken to the seized administrative building of a coal mine in Horlivka, where one of the women had seen signs like “Horlivka NKVD” and “Smersh”, referring to the groups using the site. Both women had been beaten, while interrogated about the whereabouts of their money and valuables. Through the open door, one woman had seen a room full of valuables, among which she had recognised some of her belongings. She had later found out that while she and her colleagues had been tortured, the armed groups had robbed their houses. The perpetrators had later brought an attorney and had forced the victim to rescind ownership over her apartment and land property to the perpetrators.

1469.  Ukrainian teachers had been coerced into implementing the Russian curriculum and holding classes in the Russian language or their employment had been terminated. The Commission of Inquiry documented instances in which Russian authorities had used coercion against school personnel to force them to apply Russian curricula, and against parents to force them to enrol their children in schools operating under the Russian education system. According to school personnel from the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, Russian authorities, or local residents supporting them, had carried out home visits or school visits to seek parents’ cooperation. Interlocutors reported threats to detain them, expel them from their localities, harm their families or confiscate their houses. Home visits and fear of being detained had created psychological pressure and had led some teachers to decide to leave for territories under Ukrainian Government control. The OHCHR documented 13 cases in which school administrators and teachers who had refused to teach the Russian curriculum had been arbitrarily detained, tortured, ill-treated, and/or threatened with violence. The OSCE Moscow Mechanism experts reported in July 2022 that teachers had been under pressure to abandon the original curriculum and become a tool of Russian propaganda and that they had risked measures of retaliation from the occupying forces if they did not yield to that pressure.

1478.  This information was corroborated by the OSCE Moscow Mechanism experts in their reports of April and July 2022. The experts expressed concern that since 2022, schools in occupied areas had been turned into places of propaganda with textbooks for teachers from the Russian Ministry of Education, including instructions on how to justify the Russian attack on Ukraine. In its report of July 2022, the mission corroborated the information that children living in the territories under the effective control of the Russian Federation had been exposed to massive propaganda and militarisation of education. It was, for instance, reported that the Russian armed forces had cancelled school holidays in the occupied city of Mariupol in order to prepare students for the transition to the Russian curriculum. The goal had been to remove the Ukrainian curriculum and prepare students to return to school with a Russian curriculum. The OHCHR later analysed a 2023 history textbook distributed to 16 and 17‑year‑old children in occupied territory. The textbook stated that “a junta came to power” in Ukraine in 2014 after “a bloody armed rebellion”, and that the goal of the “special military operation” was the “protection of the region of Donbass”. The textbook also referred to present-day Ukraine as an “ultra‑nationalist State” and declared that “[i]n liberating the cities, our [Russian] soldiers are finding evidence of mass crimes by Ukrainian nationalists who abuse civilians and torture prisoners of war”.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT

11. Holds, unanimously, that there has been an administrative practice of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of Article 3 of the Convention;

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CASE OF UKRAINE AND THE NETHERLANDS v. RUSSIA

(Applications nos. 8019/16, 43800/14 and 28525/20)