Russia consolidates control of occupied Ukraine with “climate of fear” - UN monitors

Russia is illegally consolidating its control over temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories by creating a "climate of fear" through arbitrary arrests, killings, and torture.

This was stated in an interview with Reuters by the head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Danielle Bell, Ukrinform reports.

Speaking ahead of the release of a new report by the Human Rights Council on the rights situation of the Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied by Russia, Bell said Russia exploits rights violations to intimidate local residents in order to coerce them to cooperate.

"These combined actions of censorship, surveillance, political oppression, repression of free speech, movement restrictions ... created a climate of fear in which the Russian Federation could systematically dismantle the Ukrainian systems of government and administration," she said.

According to Bell, UN observers did not have access to the temporarily occupied areas, but instead based their findings on more than 2,300 interviews with those who were living in occupied territories, had left occupied territory, or lived in liberated areas.

She noted that human rights violations were recorded, including killings, torture and arbitrary detention of those believed to be affiliated with Ukrainian security forces or those who supported Ukraine.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, on March 15, the UN Independent International Investigative Commission in Ukraine said it had documented new evidence that the Russian government and its troops committed war crimes and violated international and humanitarian law in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories.

Danielle Bell is expected to present the findings in a new report on the human rights situation of the occupied territory during a press conference on Wednesday, March 20.