A network of at least 20 torture chambers in Ukraine’s Kherson region, recently liberated from Russian occupation, was “planned and directly funded by the Russian state,” war crimes investigators said Thursday, citing new evidence.

A mobile justice team funded by Britain, the EU and the United States has been working with Ukrainian prosecutors on war crimes cases across Ukraine and in Kherson since it was retaken from Russian forces in November after more than eight months of occupation.

The funding of this network of torture centers was part of a Russian state plan to “subjugate, re-educate or kill Ukrainian public leaders and dissidents,” the investigative team said.

The torture centers were run by various Russian intelligence services, including the Federal Security Service (FSB), the local FSB office in Kherson and the Russian Penitentiary Service, the team said.

The Kremlin press service did not respond to a request for comment.

In January, the Ukrainian authorities said that about 200 people were tortured in 10 places. Survivors told Reuters they were tortured, including using electric shocks and strangulation techniques.

The mobile group, created in May 2022 by the humanitarian law firm Global Rights Compliance with the support of international experts, supports the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine in considering more than 71,000 appeals across the country about war crimes committed after February 24, 2022.

“New evidence collected from the recently liberated Kherson shows that these torture chambers were planned and directly funded by the Russian state,” the group, founded by British lawyer Wayne Jordash, said in a statement.

Witnesses described the use of electric shocks and waterboarding by Russian forces.

At least 1,000 people who survived torture have testified to investigators, more than 400 people are considered missing in Kherson, the report added.