Putin on Wednesday ordered Russia’s first mobilization since World War II. (File)
Switzerland:
UN investigators on Friday said war crimes have been committed in the Ukraine conflict, citing Russian bombing of civilian areas, numerous executions, torture and horrific sexual violence.
“On the basis of the evidence collected by the Commission, it has concluded that war crimes have been committed in Ukraine,” Erik Mose, head of the investigation team, told the UN Human Rights Council.
The categorical nature of the statement was unusual.
UN investigators usually articulate their findings on international crimes in conditional language and refer final confirmation of war crimes and similar violations to courts.
The council was established in May by the Commission of Inquiry (COI) – the highest possible level of investigation – to investigate crimes in the Russian war in Ukraine.
The team of three independent experts presented their first oral update to the council, after it launched initial investigations into the Kiev, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy regions, and said it would broaden the investigation in the future.
A day before the seven-month anniversary of the Russian invasion of his neighbor, Mose pointed to “the use by the Russian Federation of high-area-effect explosive weapons in populated areas”, which he said was “a source of enormous damage and suffering for civilians”. .”
– Torture, sexual violence –
He stressed that a number of attacks the team had investigated “had been carried out indiscriminately between civilians and combatants”, including cluster munition attacks in populated areas.
The team, he said, was particularly “affected by the high number of executions in the areas we visited,” and the frequent “visible signs of executions on bodies, such as hands tied behind their backs, gunshot wounds to the head and slitting throat.”
Mose said the commission is currently investigating such deaths in 16 cities and settlements, and has received credible allegations regarding many more cases it would like to document.
The investigators had also received “consistent reports of ill-treatment and torture carried out during illegal detention.”
Some of the victims had told investigators that they had been transferred to Russia and held in prison for weeks. Others had “disappeared” after such transfers.
“Conversations described beatings, electric shocks and forced nudity, as well as other types of violations in such detention centers,” Mose said.
The head of the commission said the investigators also “covered two incidents of ill-treatment against soldiers of the Russian Federation by Ukrainian troops,” adding that “although few in number, such cases are still the subject of our attention. “
The team had also documented cases of sexual and gender-based violence, Mos said, in some cases showing Russian soldiers as the perpetrators.
“There are examples of cases where family members were forced to witness the crimes,” he said.
“In the cases we examined, the ages of victims of sexual and gender-based violence ranged from four to 82 years.”
The commission had documented a wide range of crimes against children, he said, including children who had been “raped, tortured and unlawfully imprisoned”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
