Russia detains over 800 civilians in occupied territories of Ukraine, killing 77 of them - UN

Ukrinform reports this citing the statement of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The statement said that since the beginning of the armed attack, Russia has begun to detain civilians in the territories it occupies. The UN has documented 864 separate cases of arbitrary detention by the Russian Federation, many of which also amounted to enforced disappearances.

As noted, civilians were often detained during the so-called "filtering" in the occupied territory for their support of Ukraine, their status as former Ukrainian military personnel, or their political beliefs or affiliation. Among them were representatives of local authorities, volunteers, civil society representatives, priests and teachers.

The UN emphasizes that many civilian detainees were held without contact with the outside world, in unofficial places of detention, often in appalling conditions. In about a quarter of the documented cases, civilian detainees were transferred to other places in the occupied territory or deported to the Russian Federation. Often, no information about the condition of the detainees was disclosed to their families for a long time.

The UN states that it has documented the execution without trial of 77 civilians who were arbitrarily detained by the Russian Federation. Some of these cases were included in the UN report on killings published in December.

It added that Russian armed forces, law enforcement and penitentiary authorities have used torture and ill-treatment of civilian detainees on a massive scale. 

The report states that the majority of those interviewed said they had been subjected to torture and ill-treatment, and in some cases sexual violence. Torture was used to force victims to confess helping the Ukrainian armed forces, to force them to cooperate with the occupation authorities, or to intimidate people with pro-Ukrainian views.

The UN said it was deeply concerned that the Russian parliament had approved in the first reading a draft federal law that potentially exempts from criminal liability those who have committed international crimes in the occupied territories of Ukraine if they are aimed at protecting the "interests of the Russian Federation."

The UN added that this would violate the state's obligation to investigate and prosecute serious violations of international humanitarian law and gross violations of international human rights law.

The organization also called on Russia to provide UN human rights observers with full and unimpeded access to all occupied Ukrainian territories.