The head of the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, Danielle Bell, said Russian torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) is a systematic issue, and access to Russian POWs held by Ukraine has been far easier than that of Ukrainian POWs held by Russia.
Bell described in an interview with Dutch TV channel NOS that the level of Russian torture towards Ukrainian POWs is “the worst that [she has] seen in [her] career of 20 years in the UN visiting places of detention.”
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“They [were] subjected to torture during initial interrogation, and that’d includes… being beaten with metal rods, sticks, stripped… brutally beaten. Electrical nodes or electric shocks. It’s horrific,” Bell said.
“It’s certainly the worst that I’ve seen in my career of 20 years in the UN visiting places of detention.”
Bell added that more than 95 percent of the Ukrainian POWs experienced torture under Russian captivity, and torture of POWs constitutes a war crime.
“The torture is widespread, regular, it happens in these facilities, it’s happened in more than 95 percent of the Ukrainian POWs. Without question, the torture of Ukrainian POWs would amount to a war crime,” she said.
During the interview, Bell also said while the monitoring mission has “unfettered access” to detention facilities in Ukraine, Russian authorities have prevented them from accessing Ukrainian POWs, and information could only be gathered upon the POWs’ return.
ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December, 20, 2024
“In terms of the captivity of Russian POWs held by the Ukrainians, it’s first-hand, because we have direct access to the Russian POWs. We can access the place of detention, we can hear from them directly, and so it’s very straightforward on that side.
“In terms of how we collect information for the Ukrainian POWs, when we don’t have access, it’s interviewing them upon their return,” she said.
Bell also highlighted the difference between the treatment of Russian POWs compared to Ukrainian POWs.
“What merits remark is that the treatment of Russian POWs is completely different to what we see to the treatment of the Ukrainian POWs by the Russian Federation.
“So, for example, Ukrainian authorities, they give us unfettered access to the internment camps, as well as the… temporary jails, where the Russian prisoners of war are kept.”
Bell said while there were setbacks in POWs treatment under Ukrainian captivity in the initial days of the full-scale invasion, conditions have improved.
“While there were some issues in the initial days, the early days of the full-scale invasion, what’ve seen, particularly in the last year, a year and a half, is conditions of detention that are entirely compliant with international humanitarian law,” Bell added.
In July, Kyiv Post, citing an investigation from Texty, reported the stories of three Ukrainian POWs held at Russia’s Vyazemskoye Detention Center-2, where two died during detention with their corpses showing clear signs of torture and returned to Ukraine in skins and bones.
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