Russian occupiers tortured Ukrainians so brutally that some of their victims died, members of a UN-authorized investigative body said on Monday in their latest findings after examining areas from which the Russians retreated, Reuters reports. At the same time, according to them, the Russian military forced the families to listen to how they raped the women in the next room. On the other hand, the investigative body found evidence of “cases” of violence by the Ukrainian military.

Eric Mese, head of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that his team “gathered additional evidence indicating that the use of torture by Russian armed forces in areas under their control was widespread and systematic.” .

“In some cases, torture was used with such brutality that it caused the death of the victim,” he said.

According to him, Russian soldiers raped and sexually harassed women aged 19 to 83 in the occupied territories of the Kherson region.

Often the family was kept away, forcing them to hear women being raped, he added.

Russia has refused to respond to the atrocities its soldiers are accused of

Russia denies committing atrocities or targeting civilians in Ukraine. Mese said the commission’s attempts to communicate with Russia went unanswered. Moscow had an opportunity to respond to the accusations at a council meeting, but no Russian representative attended. Russia’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Responding to a subsequent press conference on the number of cases of torture resulting in death, commission member Pablo de Greiff said it was impossible to know due to limited access, but that it was “quite a large number and … comes from very different regions across the country , near and far from the battle line.”

In August and September, the Meze commission visited parts of Ukraine that were previously under the control of Russian troops, such as the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. It was found that torture was mainly used in detention centers run by the Russian authorities, and mainly against individuals accused of being Ukrainian informants.

The commission has previously stated that violations by Russian troops in Ukraine, including the use of torture, may amount to crimes against humanity.

Ukraine, in turn, committed violence by attacking Russian detainees

The UN also found “several cases” of violence by the Ukrainian military, Mese said, noting that they included indiscriminate attacks and ill-treatment of Russian prisoners.

Earlier, Kyiv stated that it was verifying all information regarding the treatment of prisoners of war, would investigate all violations and take appropriate measures.

In March 2022, the Council authorized a commission to investigate abuses in Ukraine since the start of the war, and it has visited the country several times, conducting hundreds of interviews. Evidence gathered during UN investigations is sometimes used in national and international trials, including in war crimes cases.