UN says 16,000 Ukrainian civilians remain detained by Russia amid torture claims

Unitednations,UPDATED: Aug 11, 2026 22:20 IST

The United Nations has said that more than 16,000 civilians detained by Russia during the war in Ukraine are still being “deprived of their liberty”, with many held incommunicado and on grounds that do not comply with international law. The UN also said “widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment” of both Ukrainian civilian detainees and prisoners of war by Russia are continuing, including sexual violence.

Claudia Fuentes Julio, the UN assistant secretary-general for human rights, told an informal UN Security Council meeting on Monday that the plight of civilians and soldiers taken during the war remained grave. The meeting, called by Latvia and the United Kingdom, took place as Russia and Ukraine have stepped up attacks in the four-year conflict that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.

Julio said UN human rights staff have interviewed 910 Ukrainian prisoners of war and 403 civilian detainees after their release since the invasion. The UN has not been able to visit detention facilities in Russia, and its estimate of those held does not show how many are adults or children. More than 95 per cent of the Ukrainian prisoners of war and 85 per cent of the civilian detainees reported torture or ill-treatment, often repeatedly, she said. They also reported sexual attacks and inhumane conditions, including food deprivation and inadequate medical services. Julio said the Geneva-based human rights office “has documented the execution of 129 Ukrainian prisoners of war at the beginning of their captivity, and the deaths of 48 Ukrainian prisoners of war in custody, resulting from torture, denial of medical care, or other inhumane conditions of detention”.

The council also heard from Crimean Tatar human rights activist Leniie Umerova, who described herself as a “political prisoner” of the Russians for almost two years. She said her captivity began when she tried to enter Russia from Georgia to visit her seriously ill father in Crimea, a part of Ukraine occupied by Russia since 2014. Umerova said she was detained on “fabricated charges” and, unlike many others, was able to contact a lawyer. In the third month, she said, her lawyer secured a court order for her release. “But as soon as the prison gates opened, a bag was put over my head, and I was taken away again.” Over six months, she said, she was moved through seven different facilities in what she called “a carousel of repression”. She said her case was part of a wider system used by Russia to unlawfully detain, isolate, torture and fabricate charges against civilians. She named six women in Russian prisons and said at least 84 women had faced criminal prosecution.

Khuan Leyva Garsiya, a Ukrainian soldier who was among those who held out for months at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol before surrendering to Russian forces in May 2022, also spoke at the meeting. Born in Mariupol to a Ukrainian mother and Cuban father, he said he spent 1,183 days as a prisoner of war and weighed 55 kilograms when he was freed, showing the council a picture of his emaciated body. He said he was tortured, beaten more severely and humiliated more than other prisoners because the Russians suspected he was a foreign mercenary because of his Cuban ancestry or an American spy because he had studied in the United States. “Russians were outraged that someone with a connection to Cuba, whom they consider an ally, would fight against their occupation army,” Garsiya said. He said Russian forces tried to break prisoners mentally and force them to confess to false crimes through torture, including freezing, beatings, electrocution and sexual abuse. “Two of my friends were beaten to death in detention centres in the Donetsk region,” Garsiya said. “Two of my friends died because of the conditions they were put in in Russian prisons and were returned in plastic bags to the homeland.” He said he remains in the Ukrainian military.

Julio also said UN human rights experts had interviewed 816 Russians and 57 prisoners of war from more than 45 other countries who were members of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. About half reported torture or ill-treatment, mainly during the initial stages of captivity and interrogation by Ukrainians, she said. However, UN monitors found that once they arrived in Ukrainian detention facilities, “the conditions generally comply with international humanitarian law and have improved since 2022”.

Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, Maria Zabolotskaya, told the council that the Russian armed forces were complying with international humanitarian law, including on the treatment of prisoners. She alleged that Russian prisoners in Ukraine faced “torture and degradation, and moral and physical abuse”. She described the Security Council meeting as part of “a disinformation campaign against Russia”, funded by NATO countries involved in the conflict, and said its purpose was “to derail efforts towards a peace settlement and to justify strikes on the territory of Russia and against civilians”. Ukraine’s deputy UN ambassador, Volodymyr Pavlichenko, said he was struck that Russia was not ready to discuss the return of prisoners of war, “including their POWs”, and all civilian detainees, including abducted children.

The meeting laid out the UN’s findings on large-scale detention, torture and deaths in custody, while also recording abuse allegations made by Russian detainees. It also brought personal accounts from former detainees who described how the war’s prison system has affected both civilians and soldiers.

With PTI Inputs

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