“In the cases we investigated, the age of the victims of sexual and gender-based violence ranged from four to 82 years,” Eric Moshe, chairman of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. “The Commission has documented cases in which children have been raped, tortured and unlawfully imprisoned. Children have also been killed and injured in indiscriminate attacks with explosive weapons.” The commission said it found two incidents of ill-treatment of Russian soldiers in Ukrainian captivity. The three human rights experts at the Independent International Commission of Inquiry for Ukraine traveled to Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy, visited 27 cities and interviewed more than 150 people. Speaking at the UN Security Council on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed the “increased activity of international justice”, calling it “undoubtedly a painstaking job”. The Commission said that “certain soldiers of the Russian Federation” were responsible for sexual and gender-based violence. “These acts amounted to different types of rights violations, including sexual violence, torture and cruel and inhuman treatment. There are examples of cases where relatives were forced to witness the crimes,” he added. Møse also noted that some attacks investigated by the commission “have been carried out indiscriminately between civilians and combatants, including attacks with cluster munitions and airstrikes in populated areas.” Commission members were “struck by the large number of executions in the areas we visited,” Møse added. “Typical elements of such crimes include the victims’ previous detention as well as visible signs of executions on bodies, such as hands tied behind the back, gunshot wounds to the head and slit throats,” it said. “Some of the victims reported that after initial detention by Russian forces in Ukraine, they were transferred to the Russian Federation and held for weeks in prisons. Interlocutors described beatings, electric shocks and forced nudity, as well as other types of violations in such detention facilities.”
