Russia inflicting ‘brutal torture’ on Ukrainians in occupied territory: Ukraine
Joel Gehrke
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Russia is intensifying the suppression of patriotic Ukrainians in one of the partially occupied regions that the Kremlin wants to incorporate into Russia, according to Ukraine‘s military officials.
“Citizens with pro-Ukrainian views, as well as those who do not want to comply with the demands of the local occupation so-called authorities, are subjected to brutal torture there,” the Ukrainian Armed Forces general staff alleged in a daily update on the conflict.
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That crackdown is unfolding in Zaporizhzhia, one of the key territories in the so-called “land bridge” from the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which Russian President Vladimir Putin seized in 2014, to the Russian mainland. The allegation illustrates the stakes of the combat underway in eastern Ukraine and the pressure that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky faces to orchestrate a successful counteroffensive rather than make territorial concessions to Russia.
“His margin for maneuverability has shrunk over the last year,” a senior State Department official told the Washington Examiner in a recent interview. “And, the reason for that is largely the unbelievable atrocities that Russia’s carrying out on the Ukrainian people. And, you know, it’s going to be much more difficult for, for Zelensky to … concede any territory today than it would have been perhaps in March of last year.”
War crime allegations have followed Russian forces throughout their invasion of Ukraine, particularly after the Russian withdrawal from Bucha and other towns near Kyiv led to the discovery that hundreds of civilians were killed during the weeks of Russian occupation. Those allegations received an international imprimatur from United Nations investigators who reported this week that “sexual violence amounting to torture and the threat of such against women and men have been important aspects of the torture exercised by Russian authorities” during the war.
“Russian authorities have committed unlawful transfers and deportations of civilians and of other protected persons within Ukraine or to the Russian Federation, respectively,” the independent commission of the United Nations Human Rights Council added. “This is a war crime.”
Those child deportations spurred the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Putin and a key official implementing the policy. That rebuke may have more symbolic than practical value, given the ICC’s inability to enforce its orders, particularly when a country such as Russia, like the United States, is not a party to the treaty that established the court.
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“We consider the very formulation of the issue outrageous and unacceptable. Russia, as well as several other states, do not recognize the jurisdiction of this court and, accordingly, any decisions of this kind are null and void for Russia in terms of law,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday, per state media.
Zelensky has made legal retribution for the Russian invasion a centerpiece of his diplomatic efforts over the last year. “The day will come when all the perpetrators of war crimes against Ukrainians will be brought to justice in the halls of the International Criminal Court and national courts,” he said Thursday. “Rashism will not be able to remain unpunished evil. There will be punishment. And if some terrorists hope to hide somewhere … it will not work for them.”