These must not simply be harrowing details of Russian crimes, with the UN Commission stressing that judicial and non-judicial accountability are vital for ensuring sustainable peace.
Kherson ’prison’ where hostages were tortured Photo Kherson Regional Prosecutor
Kherson ’prison’ where hostages were tortured Photo Kherson Regional Prosecutor
The United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has issued a damning report on Russia’s widespread and systematic use of enforced disappearances of Ukrainian civilians. Such abductions of civilians who are then held incommunicado, without any status and generally tortured, are part of state policy and amount to crimes against humanity, the Commission concludes.
The Commission has also spoken with Russian deserters, several of whom confirmed that they had received orders to not take prisoners, but to kill captured Ukrainian soldiers instead. Such killings appear to be coordinated policy, the Commission notes, stressing that these are war crimes.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine was created by the UN Human Rights Council shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Commission’s mandate has been extended twice, with the latest report, made public on 19 March 2025, for the period of the third mandate.
The Commission’s mandate does not cover the full period of Russia’s aggression, but it is worth noting that Russia first brought enforced disappearances to Crimea and occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts back in 2014. While it is unfortunately likely that many of the civic activists, young Crimean Tatar men and others who ‘disappeared’ in the first years after Russia’s invasion were killed, there are also a number of men and women who are almost certainly alive and in FSB custody.
While the Commission uses the past tense in talking of the enforced disappearances committed by the Russians, abductions of civilians in occupied parts of Ukraine are reported on an almost daily basis. The report speaks of those targeted, who, as well as prisoners of war, included “local authorities, civil servants, journalists, and others they perceived as a threat to their military objectives in Ukraine.”
In February 2022, Yevhen Matveyev, Mayor of Dniprorudne (Zaporizhzhia oblast) led his fellow residents, unarmed, in a peaceful protest, telling the Russian invaders to keep their tanks out of Dniprorudne. He was seized by the Russians two weeks later, with nothing known about his fate until his body, showing clear signs of torture, was returned in December 2024.
Russia only confirmed that it was holding the Mayor of Kherson Ihor Kolykhaev in September 2023, 15 months after his abduction. Nothing is known of his current whereabouts.
Russia has never admitted to holding Oleksandr Babych, Mayor of Hola Prystan (Kherson oblast) prisoner, however he is known to have been held in occupied Crimea for some time. At one stage he was imprisoned together with one of the oldest of Russia’s civilian hostages, 76-year-old Mariano Garcia Calatayud, a Spanish national whom Russia only admitted to holding in April 2023.
Russia only admitted to holding 27-year-old journalist Victoria Roshchyna prisoner in April 2024. The young woman died, severely emaciated and after suffering torture, in September 2024. Russia is effectively refusing to hand over her body.
The Russian invaders of Kharkiv oblast abducted Ukrainian writer Volodymyr Vakulenko in March 2022 and probably killed him soon afterwards. His body was among hundreds uncovered in a mass burial ground outside Izium after its liberation, in the second half of 2022.
UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk has been in Russian captivity since the beginning of March 2022. His whereabouts remain unknown, however Russia finally confirmed in April 2024 that they were holding him.
These are just some of a huge number of Ukrainian victims of enforced disappearances. Although it is, indeed known that the Russians specifically hunted down those viewed as a threat or ‘too pro-Ukrainian’, it is clear that many civilians were seized just because they caught the attention of Russian invaders. Some were killed; others are believed to be held in Russian prisons.
The Commission members have spoken with families of people missing who have not been able to get any information from the Russian authorities about the person’s whereabouts.
“The evidence gathered led the Commission to conclude that the enforced disappearances against civilians were perpetrated pursuant to a coordinated state policy and amount to crimes against humanity. “
This latest Commission report also expands on the harrowing findings of the two previous reports, concerning Russia’s use of torture, which the Commission also identifies as crimes against humanity. It has now confirmed the key role of Russia’s FSB (Federal security service], with its officials holding the highest authority in penal institutions where they were present. “They committed or ordered torture at various stages of detention, and in particular during interrogations, when some of the most brutal treatment was inflicted.” A 56-year-old former detainee had recounted how the FSB had ordered that he be subjected to electric shocks. They had also threatened that if he didn’t provide the answers they demanded, they would bring in his granddaughters and continue beating him in front of them.
The Commission also reports cases of rape and sexual violence amounting to torture against detained women. One woman they spoke with had been the victim of gang rape and other acts of violence. She is still tormented by the effect of his and told them “I keep wondering what I could have done differently to avoid all of that.”
In reporting the mounting number of cases where Russians have killed or wounded Ukrainian soldiers who were captured or who tried to surrender, the Commission stresses that these are war crimes. One former soldier who had deserted from the Russian army said that the deputy brigade commander had told the entire regiment that “prisoners are not needed, shoot them on the spot.”
Ukrainians are, unfortunately, not only the victims, with the Commission reporting that “both parties to the armed conflict, using drones, killed or wounded visibly injured soldiers who could no longer defend themselves. This is a war crime.”
The other area where Ukraine has been criticised of “some violations of human rights” is again over people accused of collaboration with the Russian authorities. Four such cases have been documented this time, all involving males accused of collaboration in 2022.
See also:
UN documents Russian rape, torture, indiscriminate bombing of civilians and other war crimes in Ukraine
UN commission confirms Russian systematic use of torture and points to evidence of incitement to genocide in Ukraine