By: Phoebe Shi

According to a new report from Human Rights Watch, Russian forces have been torturing and abusing civilians in southern Ukraine. These actions may amount to war crimes.

Russian forces have already been the subject of war crime trials in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Now, though, te Human Rights Watch is paying attention to the Russian-controlled part of southern Ukraine.

Human Rights Watch has spoken with 71 people in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. These people described 42 cases in which Russian forces held people without any contact with others. They also described being tortured. Their injuries include cuts, broken teeth, severe burns, broken bones, broken blood vessels, and broken ribs.

Even though Russian forces are allowed to hold soldiers and combatants as prisoners of war, according to the Geneva Conventions, they are not allowed to torture or abuse the prisoners. When inhumane treatment and torture is connected to a conflict, it becomes a war crime.

Yulia Gorvunova, a senior Ukraine researcher for the Human Rights Watch, said “Torture, inhumane treatment, as well as arbitrary detention and unlawful confinement of civilians, are among the apparent war crimes we have documented.”