By: Brad Chen

Ever since Russia took control of Southern Ukraine, reports of war crimes have been flooding out.

News coverage in northern Ukraine had revealed the brutal abuse that Russian troops have been subjecting innocent Ukrainian citizens too. However, there had not been much coverage of what was occuring happening in the South, and Human Rights Watch, a New York-based nonprofit, is helping change this.

In a report released by Human Rights Watch, “Russian forces have tortured, unlawfully detained, and forcibly disappeared civilians in the occupied areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions,” and according to Yulia Gorbunova, the senior Ukraine researcher at Human Rights Watch “Russian forces have turned occupied areas of southern Ukraine into an abyss of fear and wild lawlessness,” also stating “Torture, inhumane treatment, as well as arbitrary detention and unlawful confinement of civilians, are among the apparent war crimes we have documented”.

The laws of war do allow Russia to detain combatants, however, Russia has gone beyond that and started to target civilians as well, detaining people at random.

The Human Rights Watch spoke with 71 people in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, and many described either being or witnessing other citizens being tortured or even being tortured themselves by Russian forces, mostly through beatings. Interviewees have described physical injuries such as broken ribs and other bones and teeth, severe burns, concussions, broken blood vessels in the eye, cuts, and bruises.

“Ukrainians in occupied areas are living through a hellish ordeal,” Gorbunova says.