Torture of civilians by Russians in temporarily occupied territory is a crime against humanity

June 26 is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. It was on this day in 1987 that the UN Convention against Torture entered into force. On June 26, a briefing was held at the Press Centre of the Ukrainian Crisis Media Centre, where representatives of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG), the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union (UHHRU), and the Centre for Civil Liberties (CCL) Yevhen Zakharov, Oleksandr Pavlichenko, and Natalia Yashchuk examined the use of torture of civilians in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and presented a communication that the Initiative “Tribunal for Putin” submitted to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which substantiates that such torture can be qualified as a crime against humanity and a war crime. Communication published in the KHPG electronic library in Ukrainian and in English.

In the territories it now occupied, Russia’s aims were to destroy all politically aware Ukrainians, intimidate the rest of the population, and force them to move to Russia or to parts of Ukraine where the inhabitants were ‘loyal’ to the Russian regime. Russian counter-intelligence divided Ukraine’s citizens into four groups, those who

• merited physical destruction or elimination,
• were to be oppressed and intimidated,
• could be persuaded to collaborate, and
• those already willing to collaborate.

Particular targets of the occupying forces were priests and pastors, journalists, businessmen & women, public figures, local deputies, staff of local authorities, rescue workers, border police, law-enforcement officers and, especially, former soldiers who fought in 2014-2021 against the occupying Russian forces. The invaders, it almost seemed, had ready-made lists of such people. They were kidnapped and disappeared. Or they were unlawfully arrested and detained in unofficial and frequently quite unsuitable premises. The conditions were themselves a form of torture.

The detainees were cruelly tortured to obtain useful information or induce them to collaborate. After the Kharkiv Region was liberated in autumn 2022 no less than 33 such torture centres places were discovered — in Izium, Kupiansk, Balakliya, Vovchansk and other locations. Descriptions of some of these places, and testimony from the victims may be found on the KHPG website.

Even in those rare cases when prepared rooms were used to hold people, they accommodated such a large number of prisoners that it was very difficult to be in the cells. For example, in Kupyansk, the torture cells were located in the premises of the temporary detention centre for 140 places, but more than 500 prisoners were kept there. There were nine men in the cell for two places.

The recorded testimony of victims makes it possible to identify at least the following aspects of the conditions in which people were detained as amounting to inhuman treatment:

• overcrowded cells and premises;
• unventilated premises;
• lack of daylight;
• lack or insufficient volume of food and drinking water;
• inappropriate conditions for visiting the toilet or lack of any such;
• keeping detainees handcuffed and blindfolded;
• lack of necessary medical care;
• unbearable cold in the premises.

The forms of torture were similar for many geographically remote places of detention, further confirming that the use of torture was systematic and deliberate. Testimony by victims indicates there were several widespread forms of torture:

• beatings of the victims’ face, head and body using arms (sometimes wearing special gloves), legs and other objects (gun butts, rubber truncheons, wooden bats, belts, etc.);
• electric shock torture using tasers or attaching live wires to the fingers, ears and nose of victims;
• slashing the ears and fingers of victims with sharp blades or attempting to cut off parts of the body, particularly ears, even if such attempts were not completed;
• fake executions by shooting.

In their depositions, a considerable number of the victims note the particular cruelty of these forms of torture. Victims were beaten so severely that they lost consciousness. An electric current was so strong, one victim noted, that “my body crumpled up and foam came out of my mouth”.

“Of the 66 testimonies included in the annex to the communication, at least 15 victims report being kicked. In their accounts, they describe how Russian soldiers brutally kicked them across the body, smashed their faces, broke ribs, struck their heads, and at times kicked them in the stomach,” said Nataliia Yashchuk, Senior Program Manager for War Consequences Response at the Center for Civil Liberties.

If the purpose of the torture was achieved, the prisoners could be released from the torture chamber. But if they refused to kneel, or sing the Russian anthem, or shout “Glory to Russia!”, or continued to speak in Ukrainian, did the executioners simply believe that the prisoner had not broken down and continued to “pose a threat to the national security and defence of the Russian Federation” (the standard formula for refusal to cross the border of the Russian Federation, which is used even for women over 85 years old), they were transferred to one of the places of detention in the temporarily occupied territory or of the Russian Federation, and further they were detained “for opposing the SVO”, i.e. illegally. Because this qualification is absent in Russian criminal and administrative legislation.

“The Russian Federation withdrew from the Council of Europe system, but it remains responsible for all actions it committed while it was part of the Convention system. However, Russia has not withdrawn from all Council of Europe treaties — it is still a party to the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture. And the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has a mandate to carry out monitoring visits to Russia. This sounds like science fiction, since no security guarantees are provided there. The legal mechanism exists, but not a single CPT monitoring visit has taken place either during the full-scale invasion or since 2014 in the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. This is yet another violation by Russia of its international obligations,” explained Oleksandr Pavlichenko, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union. “But these international obligations have led to the fact that yesterday we witnessed the signing of an agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe on the establishment of a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression. This is the path that Ukraine and 42 countries have walked over the past three years.”

As of June 1, 2025, the T4P initiative documented 990 incidents of illegal detention and deprivation of liberty of civilians, including 24 incidents involving children. 559 of them — in Kharkiv region, 144 — in Kyiv region, 26 — in Zaporizhia region, 53 — in Kherson region, 68 — in Donetsk region, 73 — in Chernihiv region, 12 — in Luhansk region, 32 — in Mykolaiv region, 18 — in Sumy region, 5 — in other regions.

Analysis of torture cases shows that this crime was widespread — applied everywhere in the occupation, and systematic — using the same methods. These characteristics are necessary for recognizing torture as a crime against humanity.

“We acknowledge the significance of the ongoing investigative efforts of the OTP ICC in Ukraine and welcomes the issuance of six arrest warrants against Russian senior political and military leaders.” said Evhen Zakharov, the director of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. “At the same time, we wish to draw attention of the OTP to the alleged crimes of torture committed in the context of the unlawful deprivation of liberty that have been committed on a large scale and in a systematic manner in Ukraine, especially in occupied territories. KHPG urges the OTP to prioritise the investigation of the crimes of torture in the context of the unlawful detention and to identify individual suspects at the highest levels of the Russian political and military hierarchy who are most responsible for the implementation of the policy of terrorizing the civilian population in occupied territories”.