Russia has committed war crimes in Ukraine, say UN investigators
A group of United Nations experts investigating human rights violations committed in Ukraine in the seven months since Russia invaded said on Friday they had turned up evidence of war crimes.
The experts from the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, mandated by the Human Rights Council earlier this year, have so far focussed on four regions – Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy.
The Commission visited 27 towns and spoke with 150 victims and witnesses as part of their initial investigation, inspecting graves and place of detention and torture.
Victims described beatings, electric shocks, and forced nudity in Russian detention centres, the commission said.
"Based on the evidence gathered by the commission, it has concluded that war crimes have been committed in Ukraine," Erik Møse, the commission's chairman, told the Human Rights Council.
Commission member Pablo de Greiff told reporters the team had “found two instances of ill-treatment of Russian Federation soldiers by Ukrainian soldiers. ... We have found obviously significantly larger numbers of incidences that amount to war crimes on the part of the Russian Federation.”
The team travelled in June to Bucha outside Kyiv where authorities found mass graves after Russian forces retreated from the area in late March.
“We were struck by the large number of executions in the areas that we visited. The commission is currently investigating such deaths in 16 towns and settlements,” Møse said, but he did not specify which side allegedly committed the executions.
The experts also found that some Russian soldiers committed sexual or gender-based crimes including sexual violence, torture or inhumane treatment. The victims ranged in age from four to 82-years-old.
The findings echo reports by
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