By: Violet Yan
This past weekend, Human Rights Watch reported that Russian forces had beaten and tortured residents in the southern Ukraine regions under their control as part of a pattern of abuse that may qualify as war crimes. The organization’s conclusions further undermined Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s justifications for the invasion.
The nonprofit organization Human Rights Watch from New York puts the spotlight on the southern region of the nation, where the Russian occupation forces have tight control over movement and information. Russian atrocities committed north of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, have already generated outrage throughout the world and been the focus of war crimes investigations by Ukrainian prosecutors.
“Russian forces have turned occupied areas of southern Ukraine into an abyss of fear and wild lawlessness,” said Yulia Gorbunova, senior Ukraine researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Torture, inhumane treatment, as well as arbitrary detention and unlawful confinement of civilians, are among the apparent war crimes we have documented.” Ms. Gorbunova said that the Russian authorities should end such abuses immediately and understand that they would be held accountable.
The Russian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the Human Rights Watch study, but Moscow has previously refuted allegations of wrongdoing by its soldiers and asserted that their missiles target military areas rather than civilian ones. In the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia areas, Human Rights Watch reported speaking with 71 persons who detailed 42 situations in which Russian authorities had held detainees without communication or in which detainees had vanished after being held. Three Ukrainian territorial defense force personnel who were being held as prisoners of war were tortured, according to a Human Rights Watch investigation, and two of them reportedly died as a result.
“People interviewed described being tortured, or witnessing torture, through prolonged beatings and in some cases electric shocks,” the report said, adding that injuries included severe burns; cuts; concussions; broken teeth; broken bones, including ribs; and broken blood vessels.
Large-scale civic unrest against Russia’s occupation was initially observed in the Kherson Province early in the invasion. Then came repression, which in Kherson became more severe as a result of insurgent bombings and assaults on local Russian proxies and assistance from Ukrainian troops trying to retake the lost area.