War crimes, including torture on children, documented in Ukraine says UN experts

• Children as young as four have been raped and tortured during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
• Age of victims of sexual and gendered-based violence ranged from four to 82 years.
• Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine sent three experts to 27 towns and talked to more than 150 people.

A group of experts from the United Nations says that their investigation has found evidence that children have been raped and tortured during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“In the cases we have investigated, the age of victims of sexual and gendered-based violence ranged from four to 82 years,” Erik Møse, chair of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. “The Commission has documented cases in which children have been raped, tortured, and unlawfully confined. Children have also been killed and injured in indiscriminate attacks with explosive weapons.”

The panel said that it had found two cases of Russian soldiers being hurt while they were in Ukrainian custody.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine sent three experts on human rights to Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy. They went to 27 towns and talked to more than 150 people.

Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the UN Security Council that the “increased activity of international justice” was “certainly a set-up job.”

The Commission said that “some Russian Federation soldiers” were responsible for violence against women and girls.

“These acts amounted to different types of violations of rights, including sexual violence, torture, and cruel and inhuman treatment. There are examples of cases where relatives were forced to witness the crimes,” it added.

Mse also said that some of the attacks the panel looked into “had been done without telling the difference between civilians and combatants, such as attacks with cluster bombs and airstrikes on populated areas.”

Mse said that the commission members were shocked by how many people were killed in the places they visited.

“Common elements of such crimes include the prior detention of the victims as well as visible signs of executions on bodies, such as hands tied behind backs, gunshot wounds to the head, and slit throats,” he reported. “Some of the victims reported that after initial detention by Russian forces in Ukraine, they were transferred to the Russian Federation and held for weeks in prisons. Interlocutors described beatings, electric shocks, and forced nudity, as well as other types of violations in such detention facilities.”

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