GUR: The Russians are training “specialists” to torture Ukrainian prisoners of war

In Russia, there is a system of torture, for which individual people are responsible. They train "specialists" who study types of torture and apply them.

A representative of the Main Directorate of Intelligence (known as GUR) of the Ministry of Defense Andriy Yusov told about this.

According to the UN, more than 95% of Ukrainian servicemen released from captivity in the Russian Federation were tortured or suffered the consequences of other violations of International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions.

"In most cases, it was not about the use of force to obtain information. These are intentional tortures to break a personʼs resistance, personality, humiliate dignity and make them give up everything that is valuable to that person. Or break someone who is close to him," says Andriy Yusov.

He claims that the structures responsible for monitoring and protecting the Geneva Conventions and humanitarian law are actually not working. Meanwhile, according to GUR, a whole system of torture is operating in Russia.

"Individuals are responsible for this. This is how individual ʼspecialistsʼ are trained — the types of torture are described, and they learn from them. This is something that cannot be imagined by any representative of a western civilized country," the intelligence official added.

The Russians do not allow captive volunteers of the Red Cross to the places of detention, and also do not involve them in training and exchange, say GUR.

• At the beginning of November, the Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets met with the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation Tetyana Moskalkova. Representatives of the Ukrainian and Russian delegations exchanged letters, in particular, they initiated a new format: they transferred letters from Ukrainian relatives to Ukrainian prisoners of war in the Russian Federation.

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