Russians torture 95% of Ukrainian prisoners of war – UN.

Occupiers from Russia have been brutally torturing Ukrainian prisoners of war since the very beginning of their captivity. This practice of torture in Russian captivity is systematic and widespread. This was stated by the head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Danielle Bell, in an interview with the Dutch TV channel NOS.

Bell noted that 95% of Ukrainian prisoners of war were subjected to torture in Russian prisons.

"They are tortured during the first interrogation. They are beaten with metal rods and sticks, severely electrocuted. They are stripped. It is horrifying. It is the worst I have seen in my 20-year career visiting detainees on behalf of the UN. Torture is widespread and structural. 95% of Ukrainian prisoners of war have been tortured, and this is a war crime," she said.

The head of the UN Monitoring Mission reported that when the UN does not have access to Ukrainian prisoners of war, information about their conditions of detention by Russians comes after the warriors return from captivity. However, in Ukraine, the treatment of Russian prisoners of war is entirely different.

"The Ukrainian authorities provide us with unhindered access to camps and temporary prisons with prisoners of war. Although there were problems at the beginning, over the last 1.5 years, we have observed conditions of detention that complied with the humanitarian law of war," Bell emphasized.

As is known, torture violates Article 3 of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. In one testimony, the deputy commander of a Ukrainian brigade stated that a Ukrainian prisoner of war who served with him was tortured and brutally killed by Russian authorities in a detention center in the Rostov region.

Bell's statements and previous reports of the UN Monitoring Mission regarding violations of the rights of Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russia are confirmed by long-standing assessments of ISW concerning systematic violations by Russia of international human rights and humanitarian law in occupied Ukraine and regarding Ukrainian prisoners of war, according to the Institute for the Study of War report.

Earlier it became known that Ukrainian prisoner of war Oleksandr Ishchenko, who was captured during the defense of Mariupol, died in a detention center in Rostov-on-Don due to a closed blunt chest injury received from contact with a blunt object.