Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin testified before the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on April 19, 2023, accusing Russian forces of deliberately using rape, torture and kidnapping to spread terror among Ukrainian civilians, the Associated Press reported.
80,000 cases
Kostin said nearly 80,000 war crimes cases had been registered since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. He described what Ukrainian investigators found after the liberation of Kherson in November 2022, including about 20 torture chambers and more than 1,000 survivors reporting abuses such as electric shocks, waterboarding and threats of death.
He said more than 60 cases of rape had been documented in Kherson Oblast alone, and that residents, including children, were being forcibly relocated to Russia or other occupied areas.
Survivors testify
Survivors of alleged Russian war crimes also testified. A 57-year-old woman told lawmakers she had been held in a torture chamber, beaten and forced to dig her own grave.
“What we are witnessing in Ukraine is genocide,” said Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas. He said he would push for the Justice Department and the FBI to assist Ukrainian prosecutors.
Accountability
The hearing also covered the alleged indoctrination and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, information sharing with the US Justice Department, and calls for a special tribunal to try Russia’s leadership for the crime of aggression.
In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin over the alleged unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children. Russia does not recognise the court’s jurisdiction.
Sources
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