Ukrainian prisoners recount torture, sexual abuse while in Russian captivity

Ukrainian prisoners recount torture, sexual abuse while in Russian detention

UNITED NATIONS — Accounts of beatings, electric shocks, sexual violence, starvation and prolonged detention dominated an informal United Nations Security Council meeting on Monday, as Ukrainian survivors and officials accused Russia of subjecting prisoners of war and civilian detainees to systematic abuse.

Russia rejected the accusations, dismissing the meeting as “a disinformation campaign” and countering that Russian prisoners held by Ukraine had also faced torture, degradation and physical and psychological abuse.

But testimony from former Ukrainian detainees, alongside UN monitoring, painted a grim picture of captivity that human rights officials said was neither isolated nor accidental.

Khuan Alberto Levya Garsiya, a Ukrainian serviceman who spent 1,183 days in Russian captivity, told reporters after the meeting that his captors subjected him to repeated physical and psychological abuse. “Yes … I was tortured,” he said.

Garsiya described daily beatings, electrocution, forced exercises in freezing temperatures and sexual abuse, saying his captors appeared determined to break prisoners mentally as well as physically.

“Everything that can be applied to a person into making a person break mentally. It was all applied to me and most of my comrades.”

He said two friends were beaten to death in detention facilities in the Donetsk region.

The conditions inside the facilities, he said, were also devastating. Prisoners were kept in overcrowded barracks with inadequate conditions, while many suffered from dysentery and starvation.

Garsiya, who has a Cuban father, said his Latino name made him a particular target. Guards accused him of being “a mercenary and an American spy.”

‘A carousel of repression’

Another former detainee, Crimean Tatar activist Leniie Umerova, described a separate ordeal that began when she was detained while attempting to travel to Crimea to see her seriously ill father.

Umerova, who was released in a prisoner exchange in 2024, said she was moved through seven detention facilities, describing the experience as a “carousel of repression.”

Her account added to allegations that civilian detention has been used as a tool of coercion alongside the treatment of captured Ukrainian soldiers.

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission has previously documented widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian civilian detainees in Russian custody, including severe beatings, electric shocks, mock executions, stress positions and sexual violence. In a 2025 report based on interviews with 215 released civilians, the UN said most described consistent patterns of abuse.

UN: Abuse is widespread and systematic

Claudia Fuentes Julio, the UN assistant secretary-general for human rights, told the meeting that UN monitoring showed “widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian detainees by the Russian Federation authorities continues.”

Sexual violence, she said, was among the abuses documented.

According to the figures presented at the meeting, more than 95% of Ukrainian prisoners of war interviewed by UN monitors reported experiencing torture or other forms of ill-treatment.

More than half also reported sexual violence, including rape, gang rape, beatings while naked, attacks involving the genitals, electric shocks and other sexually degrading treatment.

UN monitors also recorded accounts of severe beatings with batons, belts and wooden objects, electric shocks, dog attacks and mock executions.

The figures build on a pattern of abuse documented by the UN since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022. A UN fact sheet previously reported that about 95% of 454 released Ukrainian POWs interviewed had described torture or ill-treatment in Russian captivity.

Human Rights Watch has likewise concluded that Russian authorities and forces have systematically tortured and mistreated Ukrainian POWs and civilians, describing the abuses as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Deaths in custody and executions

The UN said it had documented 129 executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war at the beginning of their captivity since February 2022, as well as 48 deaths in custody linked to torture, denial of medical treatment or other inhumane detention conditions.

The figures underscore the danger faced by detainees even after they have been removed from the battlefield.

Oleg Gushin of Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War told the meeting that Kyiv had identified more than 300 detention sites in Russia and occupied Ukrainian territory.

More than 9,000 Ukrainians have been returned through prisoner exchanges, he said, but thousands remain in Russian captivity.

Ukraine's chargé d'affaires to the UN, Volodymyr Pavlichenko, called for stronger international pressure and accountability.

Russia rejects allegations

Moscow rejected the accusations.

Russia's deputy UN representative, Maria Zabolotskaya, described the meeting and the allegations against Russia as “a disinformation campaign.”

She accused Ukraine of mistreating Russian prisoners, alleging that Russian captives had experienced torture, degradation and both physical and psychological abuse.

The UN has acknowledged that Russian and third-country prisoners held by Ukraine have also reported abuse.

But Fuentes Julio said the scale was “fundamentally different.”

About half of the Russian and third-country prisoners interviewed by UN monitors reported abuse, mainly during the initial stages of captivity.

That distinction is significant because the UN's assessment is based on interviews and monitoring of detainees from both sides rather than solely on claims made by either government.

A war increasingly documented through captivity

The allegations come as international investigators continue to build a record of treatment inside detention facilities that are largely inaccessible to independent observers.

The evidence gathered by the UN extends beyond individual survivor accounts. Its monitoring mission has repeatedly found patterns across different detention facilities and over extended periods, strengthening its conclusion that the abuse is widespread and systematic.

For survivors such as Garsiya, however, the statistics represent experiences that are far more personal.

He survived more than three years in captivity and returned to describe what happened to him and his fellow prisoners.

His account, delivered at the UN as diplomats debated responsibility and accountability, offered a stark reminder that for thousands still missing or detained, the captivity described in international reports is not history.

It is still ongoing.