Victims in Kherson testify
Moscow is said to have operated 20 torture centers
3/2/2023 5:37 p.m
An international group of investigators reveals: Several torture chambers in the liberated Cherson were planned and financed by the Russian state. Accordingly, the domestic secret service FSB and the Moscow prison authorities are said to be involved. The methods: electric shocks and waterboarding.
According to an international investigative group, Russia has operated at least 20 torture facilities in the Ukrainian region of Kherson. “New evidence from the recently liberated Kherson shows that torture chambers were planned and directly funded by the Russian state,” said the EU-UK-US funded Mobile Justice Team. The group, founded by the Global Rights Compliance foundation around British lawyer Wayne Jordash, supports Ukrainian prosecutors in investigating war crimes.
The torture facilities in the area from which Russian troops withdrew in November were operated by the Russian domestic secret service FSB and the Russian prison authorities, among others, the investigative group said. More than 1000 torture victims testified as witnesses. They reported electric shocks and simulated drowning (waterboarding). Investigators added that more than 400 people were missing in connection with the torture. The Russian presidential office did not initially respond to a request for comment.
Earlier in November, Ukrainian investigators reported the discovery of four torture sites used by the Russian occupiers in Kherson. They identified a total of four buildings in which the “Russian occupiers illegally detained and brutally tortured people,” the general public prosecutor’s office in Kiev said.
In addition, a month later, according to Ukrainian sources, torture chambers specifically for children were also found. “We found ten torture chambers in the Kherson region, four of them in the city of Kherson,” reports Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner. “In one of the torture chambers we found a separate room, a cell in which children were kept, even the occupiers called it that, a children’s cell.” The only difference between the cell and the adjoining rooms is that the occupiers laid thin mats on the floor. The International Criminal Court in The Hague is also investigating in connection with war crimes in Ukraine.