Both Russia, Ukraine tortured prisoners of war: UN

AFP :
Prisoners held by both sides in Russia’s war in Ukraine have been subjected to torture, including with beatings, electric shocks, and humiliating treatment while naked, UN investigators said on Tuesday.
Under international law, “the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment is absolute, even-indeed especially-in times of armed conflict,” Matilda Bogner, head of the UN Rights Monitoring Mission, told reporters.
She lamented that neither side in the war raging in Ukraine appeared to be adhering fully to that principle, although the ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russian captors was more “systematic”.
Speaking via video link from Kyiv, she said the team of investigators, which has been present in Ukraine since 2014, had in recent months interviewed 159 prisoners of war-all but 20 men-held by Russia, and 175 prisoners-all men-held by Ukraine.
While Ukraine gave access to the prisoners while in detention, Russia did not, and the Ukrainian prisoners of war could only be interviewed after their release, she said.
The “vast majority” of Ukrainian prisoners held by Russia described torture and ill-treatment, Bogner said. The investigators determined that some were beaten immediately upon capture and had their belongings pillaged, while many were then transported on overcrowded trucks or buses, sometimes lacking access to water or toilets for more than a day.
“Their hands were tied and eyes covered so tightly with duct tape that it left wounds on their wrists and faces,” Bogner said.
Upon arrival at some of the places of internment, the prisoners were then subjected to so-called “admission procedures”, she said, including prolonged beatings, threats, dog attacks, being stripped and put into stress positions.
Once in internment, most said they were subjected to torture.
“Torture and ill-treatment were not only used to coerce prisoners of war to give military information,” Bogner said. “They were, interviewees said, used on a daily basis to intimidate and humiliate them.”
The investigators heard from former prisoners of war that they had been beaten, including with batons and wooden hammers, kicked and given electric shocks with tasers and a military phone known as TAPik.
Bogner quoted one man who was held in a penal colony near the eastern town of Olenivka and who told the investigators that members of Russian-affiliated armed groups had “attached wires to my genitalia and nose, and shocked me”.