Geneva:
Russia has committed the crimes against humanity of enforced disappearances and torture in its war in Ukraine, a United Nations investigation concluded.
The crimes were perpetrated as part of a systematic, widespread attack against civilians, the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said in a new report to be formally presented next week.
“The commission has concluded that Russian authorities committed enforced disappearances and torture as crimes against humanity,” the report said.
“Both were perpetrated as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population and pursuant to a coordinated state policy,” it added.
The categorical nature of that statement was unusual for UN investigators.
The report said large numbers of civilians were detained in areas that came under Russian control, and many of them were further transferred to detention facilities in occupied Ukraine or in Russia.
The Russian authorities “committed additional violations and crimes during these prolonged detentions. Many victims have been missing for months and years, and some died in captivity,” it said.
Those authorities have systematically failed to provide information on the detainees’ whereabouts, it added.
The report said Russia had acted with the intent to remove disappeared people from “the protection of the law”.
Prisoners of war have also been victims of torture and of enforced disappearances, in violation of international humanitarian law, the commission added.
The inquiry said Russia had “systematically used torture against certain categories of detainees to extract information, coerce, and intimidate”.
The most brutal forms were used during interrogations, while Russian authorities have also “systematically used sexual violence as a form of torture against male detainees”.
The commission said it had also been studying a growing number of incidents concerning Russian troops killing or wounding captured or surrendering Ukrainian soldiers, which constitutes a war crime.
“Testimonies of soldiers who deserted from the Russian armed forces indicate that there is a policy not to take prisoners but to kill them instead,” the report said.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The UN Human Rights Council established its highest level of inquiry in March that year to probe violations and abuses committed during the conflict.
The independent report will be presented before the council next Tuesday.
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