Experts from the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, mandated by the Human Rights Council earlier this year, have so far focused on four regions – Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy. Presenting their most extensive findings to date, they cited former detainees’ accounts of beatings, electric shocks and forced nudity in Russian detention facilities, and raised serious concerns about the executions the team was working to document in the four regions. “Based on the evidence gathered by the commission, it has concluded that war crimes have been committed in Ukraine,” Eric Mose, the commission’s chairman, told the Human Rights Council. Commission member Pablo de Greif told reporters that the group “found two cases of ill-treatment of soldiers of the Russian Federation by Ukrainian soldiers. … We found apparently significantly higher numbers of incidents amounting to war crimes on the part of the Russian Federation.” During a June 10-day trip to Ukraine, the team visited Bukha, a town outside Kyiv, where Ukrainian authorities found mass graves and bodies strewn on the streets after Russian forces withdrew in late March. “We were struck by the large number of executions in the areas we visited. The commission is currently investigating such deaths in 16 cities and towns,” Mose said. It did not specify which or which side in the war allegedly carried out the killings. The findings echo reports by news outlets and others of the destruction, death and despair in Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion on February 24. The commission’s work could eventually feed into the work of International Criminal Court prosecutors who could face charges of war crimes in Ukraine, although it remains uncertain whether Russia or other alleged perpetrators will ever face justice. Anton Korynevich, ambassador general of Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, joined envoys from various Western countries who spoke out against Moscow’s war in the wake of the commission’s presentation. The Russian delegation boycotted the council meeting. Korynevych, speaking via video, called for the creation of a special court that would have jurisdiction “over the crime of aggression against Ukraine” and investigate senior Russian political and military leaders allegedly responsible. He said accountability was vital for rights abuses and atrocities linked to Russia’s “aggression”. But Korynevych also highlighted how the impact of the war has rippled around the world and “brought many countries to the brink of starvation, exacerbated extreme poverty, created the threat of nuclear destruction unseen before” and damaged the livelihoods of millions of people. Commission investigators visited 27 towns and settlements, as well as graves and detention and torture centers. interviewed more than 150 victims and witnesses. and met with advocacy groups and government officials, Mose said. He said an unspecified number of Russian soldiers had been found to have committed crimes of sexual or gender-based violence – with victims ranging in age from 4 to 82 years old. The commission plans to gradually expand its investigation, with areas of interest including allegations of filtering camps for people detained or deported, forced human transport and allegations of rapid adoption of children. “Evidence of Russia’s atrocities grows more horrifying by the day, most recently with the revelation of mass graves in Izium, where bodies show signs of torture,” said Michele Taylor, the US ambassador to the rights council, referring to in a Kharkiv. regional town recaptured by Ukrainian forces in recent weeks. Taylor urged commissioners to continue to “examine the growing evidence of Russia’s filtering operations, forced deportations and disappearances.” It cited “multiple sources” that said Russian authorities have interrogated, arrested and/or forcibly displaced between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, and reports that children were being deported from Ukraine and placed in Russian orphanages for adoption. A handful of Russia’s allies defended Moscow. Ina Vasileuskaya, Belarus’ deputy permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, said the goal of Russia’s invasion was to protect Russian-speakers in Ukraine. “The biased debates in the Human Rights Council that blame only Russia are a dead end,” he said. Vasileuskaya said her country was not a party to the conflict, although Belarus was one of the places where Russian forces gathered before invading Ukraine.
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