ICC team inspects Russian torture chambers in Kharkiv region

The press service of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General's Office reported this on Telegram, seen by Ukrinform.

It is noted, that during the visit of the International Criminal Court representatives, Head of the Department for Combating Crimes Committed in the Conditions of Armed Conflict of the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office, Spartak Borysenko, said that prosecutors, together with other law enforcement officers, discovered 25 torture chambers in Kharkiv region. The collected evidence indicates that the detainees were subjected to torture, physical, psychological and sexual violence. People were hardly fed and given only technical water to drink. The Russians sawed off their teeth, tied their wrists, lifted people's bodies into the air with a metal hook on the crane, pulled out nails, applied electricity through wires attached to various parts of the body, and beat them with rubber sticks.

Also, Head of the so-called Department of War, Yurii Bielousov, said that as part of a broader investigation into criminal acts committed in Ukraine, ICC prosecutors are collecting and analyzing evidence of torture of civilians in Kharkiv region.

"Our fruitful cooperation with the ICC continues. The focus should be on those criminals against whom there is sufficient evidence to prosecute regardless of their rank or position. We are doing everything possible to bring all the criminals to justice. And it will definitely happen. It's only a matter of time," Bielousov's press service quotes.

As reported, in June 2024, Brenda Hollis said during a workshop for journalists that representatives of the International Criminal Court are identifying locations where Russians brutally tortured Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians.

In September 2023, the ICC opened its field office in Kyiv.

Since March 2022, the ICC office has been conducting its own independent investigation into Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine.