"Russian forces have turned the occupied areas of southern Ukraine into an abyss of fear and savage anarchy," said Yulia Gorbunova, Ukraine researcher at Human Rights Watch.
According to her, “torture, inhuman treatment, as well as arbitrary detention and sequestration of civilians” take place in the regions of Kherson and Zaporijjia, partially controlled by the Russian army.
She urges the Russian authorities to “put an immediate end to these abuses”.
The NGO states that it has interviewed more than 70 Ukrainians having described more than 40 cases of abuse and documented the torture of three members of the Ukrainian territorial defense, who were made prisoners of war and two of whom died.
A resident of Kherson, Aliona Lapchuk, explained in June that her husband, a member of the territorial defense, had disappeared in this city after being interrogated by Russian troops, before his body was found at the beginning of June at the bottom of a river.
To “obtain information and instill fear”
“Interviewees described being tortured, or witnessing torture, by prolonged beatings and, in some cases, electric shocks,” details HRW, also mentioning “wounds, including ribs and other bones and broken teeth, severe burns, concussions”.
The objective of these tortures "seems to be to obtain information and instill fear so that people accept the occupation" Russian, added the NGO.
Already in June, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said it had documented hundreds of cases of arbitrary detention by Russian forces in areas they, or armed groups affiliated with it, control in Ukraine.
It also determined that many people had been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment and “an unknown number of victims (…) transferred to the territory of the Russian Federation…”, inter alia, where they are “ held in prisons, often together with prisoners of war”.
