The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has published a report on human rights violations and war crimes in Ukraine. It is about rape, torture, deportation of children and indiscriminate attacks.
Recent investigations by the commission in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions indicate that rape was often accompanied by additional acts of violence against the victims, including severe beatings, strangling, suffocating, slashing, shooting next to the head of the victim and wilful killing. A 75-year-old woman who stayed alone to protect her property, was attacked by a Russian soldier who hit her on her face, chest, and ribs, strangled her, as he was interrogating her. He ordered her to undress and when she refused, he ripped off her clothes, cut her abdomen with a small sharp object and raped her several times. In addition to the consequences of the rapes, the victim suffered several broken ribs and teeth.
The report also contains new evidence collected in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. They testify to the systematic nature of torture in the occupied territories. The Russians torture mostly men who are suspected of passing information to Ukraine. Witnesses reported situations in which torture had been committed with such brutality that the victim died. In a detention facility in a school in Biliayivka village, Kherson region, co-detainees requested medical care when a victim showed signs of respiratory distress immediately after being tortured. However, Russian armed forces refused, and the victim died within an hour.
Additional indiscriminate attacks with explosive weapons committed by Russian armed forces, which the Commission investigated, have led to deaths and injuries of civilians and the destruction and damage of civilian objects. For example, as a result of an attack in April 2023, on a multistorey block of residential apartments in Uman, Cherkasy region, 24 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed, and part of the building became uninhabitable.
The Commission investigated further accounts regarding transfers of unaccompanied children by Russian authorities to the Russian Federation or to areas they occupied in Ukraine. It documented the transfer of 31 children from Ukraine to Russia in May 2022, and concluded that it was an unlawful deportation, which is a war crime. The Commission is concerned about information regarding measures that have the apparent aim of allowing certain children to remain for prolonged periods in the Russian Federation.
The report contains three cases where the investigations showed that Ukrainian authorities committed violations of human rights against persons whom they have accused of collaboration with the Russian authorities.
- The UN Human Rights Council created an independent international commission to investigate violations in Ukraine in 2022 to investigate all alleged violations of human rights and international humanitarian law and related crimes in the context of Russiaʼs aggression against Ukraine. In March 2024, the commission will present a comprehensive report on its activities to the UN Human Rights Council. This Commission does not record signs of genocide in Ukraine. This commission does not see signs of genocide in Ukraine.