There will be no more monitoring of prisoners: Russia has withdrawn from the European Convention against Torture

The Russian Federation has officially withdrawn from the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture. This means that there will no longer be independent monitoring of places of detention in the country, the Council of Europe reports, according to UNN.

Details

Russian authorities officially informed European institutions of this step back in late October 2025. Under Article 22 of the Convention, a state's withdrawal takes effect one year after the date of notification.

Additionally

The Russian Federation had been a party to the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture since 1998. From then until 2021, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture conducted 30 visits to Russia and visited more than 450 places of detention.

However, Russia was the only participating country that systematically refused to publish the reports resulting from the visits.

Only four reports on visits to places of detention in Russia were authorized for publication. The unpublished reports concern periodic and ad hoc visits, including 10 visits to Chechnya and other parts of the North Caucasus between 2000 and 2017

Following the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Committee received numerous reports of alleged torture and ill-treatment by Russian officials and security forces both in places of detention in Russia itself and in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

To remind you

According to the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, Russia has not abandoned the prospect of a direct military confrontation with Europe. Moscow considers it one of the scenarios for military conflicts through 2045.

At the same time, the UN Human Rights Office documented more than a thousand cases of sexual violence since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation.