Ukraine war: Russian 'torture chambers', Kherson 'provocations', fears on Ukraine-Russia border
Ukraine claimed to have found makeshift prisons used by Russian forces to "torture" Ukrainian troops on Sunday.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said more than 10 “torture chambers” had been discovered in the Kharkiv region since the hasty withdrawal of Russian troops last week.
Euronews cannot independently verify this. Torture and inhumane treatment are war crimes under international law, and Russia has repeatedly denied committing such offences in Ukraine.
The alleged prisons were found in the village of Kozacha Lopan, which lies less than two kilometres from the Russian border. The area was recently liberated by Ukrainian forces as part of their major counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Reporters on the ground described one of the sites as a dank basement behind the local supermarket, with metal bars cordoning off a corner of the room to form a large cell. Dirty sleeping bags and duvets lay on top of sheets of Styrofoam for insulation from the damp earth floor. In the corner, two black buckets served as toilets.
In a statement posted on Telegram, the prosecutor’s office of the Kharkiv region said the basement was used as a torture cell during the Russian occupation.
It said Russian forces had set up a local police force that ran the prison, adding that documents confirming the functioning of the police department and implements of torture had been seized.
In his nightly address to the nation Saturday, Zelenskyy said there was another location in Kozacha Lopan, where “a room for torture and tools for electric torture was found.”
An investigation by Ukrainian authorities is ongoing.
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