Scale of alleged torture and detentions by Russian forces in Kherson

Oksana Minenko is a 44-year old accountant living in Kherson. She claims that she was tortured and repeatedly detained by the occupying Russian forces.

She said that her husband, a Ukrainian soldier died while defending Kherson’s Antonivskyi bridge during the first day full-scale war. According to Minenko, Russian forces placed her hands in boiling hot water and pulled out her fingernails. They then beat her so severely that she required plastic surgery.

Minenko said: "One pain became another," while speaking at an improvised humanitarian assistance centre in December. Minenko was afflicted by scarring around her eyes after an operation to repair the damage. "I was a living body."

According to interviews with more then a dozen victims, law enforcement officers from Ukraine and international prosecutors supporting Ukraine, the methods used to torture the victims included electric shocks to the genitals, beatings, and various forms of suffocation.

Some people claimed that prisoners were held in cramped cells with no sanitation, food or water for up to two months.

These statements are consistent with what Ukrainian authorities have stated about detention conditions. This includes detainees being bound and blindfolded, subject to beatings, electric shocks, and injuries including severe bruising, broken bones, and forced nudity.

According to Andriy Kolenko, chief war crimes prosecutor for the Kherson region, "This was done systematically, exhaustingly" in order to obtain information on the Ukrainian military and suspected collaborators, or to punish those who were critical of the Russian occupation.

Moscow has denied war crimes and targeting civilians, despite stating that it is conducting a special military operation in Ukraine.

The most complete figures available on the scale of alleged tortures and detentions have been shared by Ukraine's top war crime prosecutor. They show that the country's authorities opened pre-trial inquiries involving over a thousand people living in the Kherson region, who were allegedly illegally held by Russian forces during their long occupation.

Members of Ukrainian law enforcement say that the scale of crimes now being committed in the Kherson region seems to be greater than those occurring around Kyiv's capital. This is due to the fact that the area was occupied for so long.

Yuriy Belovov, Ukraine's top war crime prosecutor, stated that authorities have identified ten locations in the Kherson area used by Russian forces to unlawfully detain. He said that around 200 people were alleged to have been tortured or assaulted at these sites, and another 400 were held illegally there. The Ukrainian authorities expect these figures to rise as they continue their investigation into Russia's withdrawal from Kherson, the only Ukrainian capital that it had captured in its almost year-long war with its Western neighbor.

Belousov stated that authorities nationwide have opened pre-trial inquiries into the alleged unlawful detention of more than 13.200 people. He said that 1,900 investigations have been launched into allegations of illegal detention and ill-treatment.

Russia accused Ukraine of war crimes, while the West has been accused of not paying attention to them. This includes claiming that Ukrainian soldiers executed Russian prisoners. In November, the United Nations stated that it had evidence that both sides had tortured prisoner of war. A U.N official said that Russian abuse was "fairly systemic". Kyiv previously stated it would investigate any abuses committed by its armed forces.

Minenko believes that her alleged torturers targeted her because her husband was a soldier. Minenko said that Russian forces arrived at Minenko's grave a week after his death and forced her to kneel beside him.

Minenko claims that three times in March and April, men wearing Russian military uniforms and their faces covered with balaclavas visited her home at night and interrogated and then took her into custody. One time, they forced her to change and beat her. Her head was covered and her hands were tied to a chair.

Minenko said: "When you have a bag over your head and are being beat, there is such an air vacuum that you cannot breathe, can do nothing, you cannot defend yourselves."

CRIMES OF 'WIDESPREADING'

The February invasion by Moscow of Ukraine triggered Europe's largest land war since World War Two. Russia began its occupation of Kherson in March and then withdrew its troops in November, claiming that it was futile to lose more Russian blood there.

Belousov stated that more than 7,700 of the more than 50,000 war crimes reports filed with Ukrainian authorities have been from the Kherson region. He said that more than 540 civilians are still missing from the area. According to Kovalenko (the regional prosecutor), some people were taken to Russian-held territory in what appears to be forced deportations. This includes children.

Belousov stated that authorities have discovered more than 80 bodies. The majority of them were civilians and more than 50 of them had died from gunshot wounds and artillery shelling. Belousov said that hundreds of civilian bodies had been discovered in areas where Russian forces had left. This includes over 800 civilians from the Kharkiv area, where investigators took longer to investigate after Ukraine retook large swathes of territory in September.

According to Volodymyr Tymoshko, Kharkiv’s regional police chief and Jan. 2 Facebook post, 25 locations were also identified by Ukrainian authorities as "torture camp" locations.

If they are considered sufficiently serious, some of the thousands of war crimes alleged by Russian forces may be transferred to foreign tribunals. An investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC), focusing on alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine has been opened by the Hague-based International Criminal Court .

According to Nigel Povoas (british lawyer), the lead prosecutor of a Western-backed team that includes legal experts who are supporting Kyiv in its efforts to prosecute war criminals, the numbers of alleged torture and detentions "point to widespread, grave criminality on Russian-occupied territory".

Povoas stated that there appeared to be a pattern of terror and suffering in Ukraine. This reinforces the "impression of a wider criminal policy emanating from the leadership" for targeting the civilian population.

ALLEGED BEATS, ELECTRIC SHOCKS

A 35-year old Kherson man claimed that Russian forces had beaten him during a five day detention in August. They also made him wear a mask and gave him electric shocks to the ears and genitals. The current strikes and "it's almost like a ball hitting your head" and you go unconscious, said the man. He asked for anonymity out of fear of reprisals.

According to him, his captors had interrogated him about Ukraine’s military activities, including the storage and use of explosives. They suspected that he was connected to the resistance movement. Andriy said that he knew people who had served in the Ukrainian military or territorial defense forces, but he wasn't one of them.

According to Ukrainian authorities, the office building in Kherson was one of the most important detention facilities in the area. According to authorities, more than 30 people were held in one room of the basement's warren-like structure that was used during the Russian occupation for torture and detention. Authorities said that an investigation is underway to determine the number of people being held.

A December visit to the basement revealed that the air was suffused with human excrement, blocked windows and visible signs of what Ukrainian authorities claim were torture tools by Russian forces, such as metal pipes and plastic ligatures, and wires hanging from the ceiling, which were allegedly used for electric shocks. Authorities believe that the notches were left by detainees to count the days they were held and also to transmit messages. One of them read: "For Her I Live."

Liudmyla Shumbkova, 47, claimed that she was held hostage at the site on No. 3 Energy Workers' Street for the majority of the fifty-days they were held in detention this summer. The Russians inquired about her sister's child because they believed that he was part of the resistance movement.

Shumkova, a health sector lawyer, stated that about half a dozen people were confined to a single cell with no windows for light and only one meal per day. She claimed she was not physically tortured, but that she was subject to physical torture by fellow detainees, including a female officer in the police force with whom she shared a cell. She said that men were subject to particularly severe torture. They screamed and it was continuous, every day. It could last up to three hours.

INVESTIGATION CONTINUES

Investigators are still trying to find those responsible for war crimes and the possible roles of high-ranking military leaders. Belousov, war crimes chief, answered a question about whether criminal proceedings had been initiated against torture perpetrators. He said that more than 70 suspects had been identified and that 30 had been indicted.

Belousov didn't identify the individuals but said that most suspects were lower-ranking military officers. However, some of them are "senior officer, in particular colonels or lieutenant colonels", as well as senior officials in pro-Russian Luhansk, Donetsk military/civilian administrations. Representatives of the proRussian Luhansk People's Republic as well as Donetsk People's Republic did not respond to questions regarding whether their forces were involved with unlawful detentions and torture.

Questions about the alleged perpetrators were not answered by the Kremlin or Russian defense ministry.

A cold December day saw war crimes investigators examine a Bilozerka village in the Kherson region. They found a courthouse that Ukrainian authorities claim was used to torture and detain individuals. The school was also turned into a barracks by 300 Russian soldiers. The walls of the now abandoned school were covered with the "Z", symbol which has become an emblem for support for Russia during the war.

A small group of investigators collected DNA samples and took fingerprints at the courthouse. They had also placed yellow numbers in a garage adjacent to the courthouse as a way to identify the evidence. Two prosecutors stated that a desk chair was found on its side and that nearby were plastic ties and a pouch for liquid. The gas mask and tube attached to it looked like improvised torture devices used by the Russian occupants to induce a feeling of drowning.

Questions about alleged torture methods were not answered by the Kremlin or Russian defense ministry.

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