Russia planned torture centres in occupied Ukrainian territories
The Russians have created a network of at least 20 torture centres that Ukrainian and international lawyers said was part of a well-thought-out Russian strategy to exterminate Ukrainian identity. In particular, such facilities were operating in Kherson.
Source: CNN
Details: CNN talked to Wayne Jordash, head of the Mobile Justice Team, a collective of international investigators supporting Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General, about these torture centres.
"These detention centres are linked, they follow a very similar, if not identical way of behaving," Jordash said.
The investigation found that Russian forces followed a very specific blueprint in several occupied areas, with clear patterns that point to the overarching plan of Moscow’s occupation of Ukraine. According to Jordash, the Russians plan three stages of exterminating Ukraine’s resistance movement.
"The first stage, essentially, is to detain and, in many instances, kill a category of people labelled as ‘leaders,’ i.e. those who could physically resist the occupation, but also those who could culturally resist it," Jordash said.
The second stage, he emphasised, is a sort of filtration process where the population that remains outside of the detention centres is subject to constant monitoring and filtration so that anyone who’s suspected of being involved with "leaders" or having been involved with organising any type of resistance is also then identified and either deported to Russia or detained in the detention centres and tortured.
Jordash said these methods were employed not just in Kherson but in other areas occupied by Russian forces, such as the Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Borodianka. However, he added, the lengthy occupation of Kherson allowed Russian forces to go even further.
"The third stage [is] the extinguishing of permanent identity. This can include removing the Ukrainian curriculum from schools, and confiscating objects considered to be pro-Ukrainian, such as flags or t-shirts in the country’s colours. Essentially, the population [is] locked down so that all traces of Ukrainian identity can be removed," he explained.
CNN states that Ukrainian and international investigators also said they discovered financial links connecting these detention centres to the Russian state.
"Those detention centres have financial links to the Russian state. Financial documents show that the civilian administration is being financed from Russia and the civilian administration is financing the detention centres, so you have very clear patterns and very clear links," Jordash said, citing documents uncovered by the investigators.
CNN has not been able to independently review the documents cited by the investigation. Jordash said these are just the preliminary results of the investigation, explaining that more evidence of Russian war crimes is still being uncovered and processed.
"For me, what is interesting about Kherson is you really see the microcosm of the overall criminal plan, what would have happened to [the rest of] Ukraine, had Russia managed to be successful in its occupation of vast areas of Ukraine," he explained.
Jordash believes that a larger Russian occupation would have led to an "unprecedented" number of detentions, as well as cases of torture and killings.
CNN has reached out to the Russian government for comment on the accusations put forward by Ukrainian and international investigators but has yet to hear back.
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