Investigations in Kherson, a recently liberated Ukrainian city, have revealed at least 20 torture centers with financial ties to Russia’s federal government, as stated by a group of international lawyers assisting Ukraine with probing alleged Russian war crimes.
A year after Russian troops seized the Ukrainian city of Kherson, new evidence has been presented. In November, Ukrainian forces regained control of the southeastern city, with a population of more than 280,000 people.
Wayne Jordash, the managing partner of Global Rights Compliance, informed CNBC that after working closely with Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General, evidence of a financial connection between the main torture chambers in Kherson and the Russian state had been uncovered.
“Working closely with Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General, a paper trail has been exposed that shows that the main torture chambers in Kherson and those administering them do so through the financial support of the Russian state.”
Jordash revealed that a group of attorneys, specialists, and detectives found that the torture centers were supervised by a few of Russia’s Federal Security Services, such as the FSB, the successor to the KGB.
Millions of rubles from Russian President Vladimir Putin and his administration have been used to finance the Kherson torture centers, which were built with the single purpose of murdering those who posed a danger to the Kremlin’s schemes to eradicate Ukrainian identity and culture, stated Jordash, the head of a Mobile Justice Team, a coalition of global attorneys and examiners that are assisting Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s office. The Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group, supported by the US State Department, the European Union, and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, houses the Mobile Justice Team as one of its components.
Prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the United States Department of State had a compact group of individuals on the ground in the country, supplying operational aid to the state prosecutor.
A brand new report claims that since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian forces have transported at least 6,000 Ukrainian kids to camps.
Beth Van Schaack, US ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, reported that the decision to scale up the operation was made after the invasion. It was met with enthusiasm from the European Union and the United Kingdom, resulting in the current three-way effort.
Van Schaack indicated that the Mobile Justice Teams are a group of international experts assigned to aid investigators in securing crime scenes, recognizing signs, and interviewing victims and observers. She continued that Ukraine’s prosecutor general has kept track of more than 70,000 Russian war crimes since the beginning of the war a year ago.
“The goal is to support ultimately the prosecutor general in his efforts to do effective investigations to international standards, to put together dossiers on responsible individuals, and ultimately to bring criminal cases in domestic courts,” she added.
“Whenever Russia has troops withdraw or troops retreat, journalists, human rights advocates, investigators, NGO workers are able to get into those areas, and they are confronted by this potential evidence of serious atrocities,” Van Schaack said, referencing a pattern seen in Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, Izium, Kherson, Kharkiv, and other cities and towns where Russian troops were deployed.
A United Nations document recently described numerous allegations of war crimes attributed to Russian troops in Ukraine, including reports of rape, torture, and executions.
The Russian government has denied accusations that its military forces have committed war crimes or intended to harm civilians. An inquiry for comment to the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, by CNBC, did not receive an immediate response.
From Kherson, over 1,000 Ukrainians provided personal reports of their experiences in the torture centers set up in the basements of deserted buildings and old prisons. Furthermore, over 400 people were reported to have gone missing from the torture centers in Kherson, yet it is unknown if they were killed or taken to Russian-controlled areas.
The torture locations had multiple objectives, such as holding people captive, questioning them, trying to change their views, and inflicting physical harm.
The War Crimes Prosecutor’s office and police officers in Kherson, Ukraine, are examining war crimes committed by Russian occupying forces against the civilian population. The evidence of these offenses can be seen on a calendar marked on the wall of a cell.
In interviews with lawyers, those who survived reported that the Russian military regularly utilized electric shock torture and waterboarding at detention sites.
There have been instances where Ukrainians were obliged to learn and chant pro-Russian slogans, verses, and melodies.
“This is yet more evidence of genocidal tactics baked into Putin’s plan to extinguish Ukrainian identity in the areas under Russian occupation,” Jordash said.
He stated that the Kremlin has not indicated that they are willing to abandon their desire to take away Ukraine’s independence in an attempt to re-establish the Soviet Union.
“Many more torture centers certainly exist around Ukraine in occupied areas and are being funded by Putin’s credit card,” Jordash added.
The US has denounced Russia’s forced expulsion of up to 1.6M Ukrainian nationals as a war crime.
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