A U.N. commission has found new evidence that Russian troops in Ukraine intentionally committed war crimes, including murders, rapes and abductions of Ukrainian children, according to a report published Friday and reported by The New York Times on Saturday.
According to the American newspaper, “The victims’ statements also indicated the systematic and widespread use of torture in several Russian detention centers,” say the report’s authors.
“Based on more than 450 interviews with victims and witnesses in areas liberated by Ukrainian troops or with those who escaped from Russiancontrolled areas,” the NYT said, “the report documents the use of electric shocks against prisoners, who are accused of supporting the Ukrainian armed forces, the rape of women between the ages of 16 and 83 and the transfer of unaccompanied Ukrainian children to Russian territory i.e. the kidnappings that have already led to Vladimir Putin being convicted as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court had led.
“The report, prepared by a panel commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council, focused on the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where Russian forces quickly seized territory at the start of their fullscale invasion last year. Unlike northcentral Ukraine, which was liberated by Kiev’s forces and allowed investigators to more quickly uncover crimes committed by Russian forces, parts of these two regions remain under Moscow’s control and are largely inaccessible to international organizations. This complicated the investigation and raised fears that millions of people living there were at risk of human rights violations,” the paper said.
The commission states in the report that the crimes of “rape and other sexual violence were often committed in conjunction with other acts of violence against the victims, including severe beatings, choking, suffocation, lacerations, shots close to the head and intentional homicide.”
In February 2022, Jair Bolsonaro defended Putin, saying it was “exaggerated” to talk about a Russian massacre on Ukrainian territory. “There is no interest of a head of state in carrying out massacres against anyone. He [Putin] works in two regions of Ukraine,” assured the then president.
In May 2022, Lula told Time magazine that “people are stirring up hatred against Putin.” In January 2023, he stated: “If one doesn’t want to, two don’t fight.” In September 2023, he stated that if Putin came to Brazil, there would be “no reason to arrest him,” ignoring the ICC’s arrest warrant against him the Russian tyrant, a court that still sought to disqualify the PT member. claiming that “emerging economies are signatories to things that harm themselves.”
In the enchanted world of Lula and Bolsonaro, reading the UN commission report would be torture.