Amnesty International, the international human rights watchdog, says in its latest report that both sides of the war in Ukraine’s east torture their prisoners.
“In the shadow of eastern Ukraine’s still-smouldering conflict, our on-the-ground research shows that accounts of detainee torture are as commonplace as they are shocking. More than 30 former prisoners held by both sides gave us consistent and harrowing accounts of their captors’ abuse,” said John Dalhuisen, Europe and Central Asia Programme Director at Amnesty International.
According to Amnesty International, many former prisoners interviewed by the organization described being beaten until their bones broke, tortured with electric shocks, kicked, stabbed, hung from the ceiling, deprived of sleep for days, threatened with death, denied urgent medical care and subjected to mock executions.
There were 17 former hostages, held by separatists’ forces, and 16 by Ukrainian forces, including the Security Service of Ukraine, the report states.
All of them were held captive at some point between July 2014 and April 2015. Most interviews were held last spring.
Human rights activists urge Ukrainian authorities to investigate all allegations of such abuses, as well as “calling on relevant United Nations agencies and experts to undertake an urgent mission to Ukraine to visit all detention sites for prisoners held in connection with the conflict.”
Markian Lubkivskyi, a senior adviser with the Security Service of Ukraine or SBU, said at a briefing on May 21 that the SBU, as well as the Ukrainian state, treats detained militants with humanity, and according to the international and Ukrainian law. In his words, Ukraine does everything possible to provide them relevant medical help and to let human rights organizations visit them.
Amnesty International has identified at least three recent incidents where separatist fighters summarily killed a total of at least eight pro-Kyiv fighters, according to the report.
Organization also mentions an interview with a journalist, in which “one separatist armed group leader openly admitted to killing captive Ukrainian soldiers, a war crime.”
Head of the Kremlin-backed Sparta Battalion Arseniy Pavlov, better known by his nom-de-guerre Motorola, in a telephone conversation with the Kyiv Post on April 3 said he had shot 15 prisoners dead.
Report also cites a former prisoner held by Right Sector, saying that they used an abandoned youth camp as an ad hoc prison, were dozens of civilian prisoners as hostages are being brutally tortured.
Artyom Skoropadsky, the Right Sector’s spokesman, told Kyiv Post that it makes no sense for the group members to torture their prisoners, “at least because we pass them to the SBU later, and if they will be maimed, they will ask us, why they are maimed.”
“Of course (our members) can hit them during the arrest or something, but they get the same food that our soldiers eat, of course, they live in worse conditions, but they even get beds,” Skoropadsky said.
He also said that Right Sector doesn’t have a special camp or prison for the hostages, adding they are held in a special room at their military base.
Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected]
