Since 2014, Russia has repeatedly violated international conventions and imprisoned thousands of Ukrainian civilians without legal grounds. This is stated in a special report of the organization for security and co-operation in Europe (OSCE, reports UNN.
Details
During the presentation of the report, at the Helsinki Commission of the United States, its authors noted that the exact number of Ukrainians deprived of their liberty cannot be determined in the context of the ongoing conflict, but this practice of illegal detention of Ukrainians began in 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea.
The arbitrary deprivation of liberty of the civilian population of Ukraine began in the illegally annexed Crimea in the spring of 2014, and quickly spread to the areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions controlled by the so-called people's Republics
It is also noted that since the beginning of a full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, this practice has spread to all territories that fell under the temporary occupation of the Russian Federation.
The special rapporteurs visited Ukraine on March 18-24, 2024 as part of the OSCE Moscow mechanism, under which expert commissions are sent to participating states to help them solve a human rights problem.
Veronika Belkova, an expert from the OSCE Moscow mechanism, said that arbitrary deprivation of liberty of civilian Ukrainians is a war crime under Article 147 of the Geneva Convention, and the massive, widespread and systematic nature of this crime proves that we are talking about crimes against humanity.
The OSCE emphasizes that military personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation or representatives of the occupation authorities involved in the detention of Ukrainians commit "both a war crime "of illegal deprivation of liberty" and a crime against humanity.
The mission also concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the military crime of "unlawful deprivation of liberty", as well as the crime against humanity, which consists of "deprivation of liberty or other severe deprivation of physical liberty with a violation of fundamental norms of international law", 3 were committed (...) military personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation or representatives of the occupation authorities
During her speech at the Helsinki Commission, Bilkova stressed that Russia detained Ukrainian civilians under the pretext of their support for Ukraine and rejection of the Russian occupation, either in order to force them to cooperate with the occupation authorities or to sow fear among the population. Her quote is quoted by Voice of America.
All of these reasons are illegal under international law, just as deprivation of Liberty based on them is arbitrary and illegal
Addition
In addition, another author of the report , Elina Steinerte, stated that in Detention, Ukrainians are subjected to ill-treatment. They are also often held in unofficial, temporary places of detention, sometimes in holes dug in the ground and subjected to violent acts
There are frequent cases when Ukrainian civilians, arbitrarily deprived of their liberty by Russia, are subjected to murders, tortures and various types of ill-treatment that degrades human dignity. They are denied the simplest guarantees of a fair trial"
The OSCE also notes that the majority of detained civilians are never informed about the grounds for their detention, and they do not have the opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention.
Recall
Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said that Russia continues to restrict visits by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to Ukrainian prisoners of War.