The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine published its comprehensive study on Thursday, the Euronews outlet reported.
It came exactly a year after the Russian bombing of a theatre in Ukraine’s southeastern city of Mariupol, which killed hundreds of people, according to officials.
‘Potential crimes against humanity’
The report said that the Russian army has conducted “indiscriminate and disproportionate” attacks on Ukraine, committed torture, killed civilians outside of combat and failed to take steps to safeguard the Ukrainian population, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper reported.
The study’s conclusions represented “a highly unusual condemnation of a member of the UN’s security council,” the UK paper noted.
The UN-mandated investigative commission cited repeated attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure that left hundreds of thousands of people without heat and electricity during the coldest months as “potential crimes against humanity.”
Moreover, the 18-page report described the “systematic and widespread” use of torture across Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, and detailed torture methods used in Russian detention facilities.
For instance, victims were subjected to electric shocks with a military phone—a method known as a “call to Putin”—or hung from the ceiling in a “parrot position,” according to the Reuters news agency.
The study is based on over 500 interviews as well as satellite images and visits to detention sites and graves, officials said.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, is expected to seek the arrest of Russian officials for “forcibly deporting children from Ukraine and targeting civilian infrastructure,” Reuters reported.
Russia denies committing atrocities or targeting civilians in Ukraine, according to news outlets.
Western allies ‘discussing’ whether to send jets to Ukraine: Danish PM
Meanwhile, Western countries are debating whether to provide fighter jets to Ukraine, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, Polish President Andrzej Duda announced that his country would transfer four MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine in the coming days to help its neighbour fight Russia's invasion.
Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2: “This is something we’re discussing in the group of allied countries. It’s a big wish from Ukraine.”
Denmark is “open” to the idea of sending fighter jets to Ukraine to help Kyiv repel Russia's invasion, Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said last Friday, according to The Guardian.
Speaking in an interview with state broadcaster DR, Poulsen stated at the time: “I won’t rule out that at some point it may be necessary to look at the contribution of fighter jets.”
Denmark’s air force has bought 77 American F-16 jets since the 1970s, according to officials.
Around 30 of them are currently in operation, The Guardian reported.
Friday is day 387 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, Reuters, Euronews, un.org, The Guardian