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The
36-page report based on 70 visits to detention centres and more
than 1,000 interviews showed that Ukraine had also violated
international law by arbitrarily detaining civilians but on a
considerably smaller scale.
"We documented over 900 cases of arbitrary detention of
civilians, including children, and elderly people," Matilda
Bogner, Head of the U.N. rights monitoring mission in Ukraine,
told a press conference by video link from Uzhhorod, Ukraine.
"The vast majority of these cases were perpetrated by the
Russian Federation."
The executions by Russia amounted to a war crime, Bogner added.
No such executions were documented on the Ukrainian side.
Of the 864 civilians held by Russia, the U.N. human rights
office was able to document 178 cases in detail, it said. Of
those, more than 90% were tortured, the report said, citing
incidents of waterboarding, electrocution and the use of a "hot
box" where detainees are held in solitary confinement in a box
in high temperatures.
The detentions took place in both Ukraine and Russia, it said.
The U.N. documented 75 cases of detention of civilians by
Ukrainian forces, saying changes to Ukraine's criminal codes had
given Kyiv greater discretion to carry out such practices. It
said that more than half of them had also been subjected to
torture or ill-treatment.
Ukraine gave U.N. investigators full access with the exception
of one incident, the report said, while Russia did not provide
any access to detainees despite repeated requests.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by William Maclean and
Christina Fincher)
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