“The goal is to support ultimately the prosecutor general in his efforts to do effective investigations to international standards, to put together dossiers on responsible individuals and ultimately to bring criminal cases in domestic courts,” she added.
“Whenever Russia has troops withdraw or troops retreat, journalists, human rights advocates, investigators, NGO workers are able to get into those areas and they are confronted by this potential evidence of serious atrocities,” Van Schaack said, referencing a pattern seen in Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, Izium, Kherson, Kharkiv and other liberated cities and towns.
A U.N. report previously outlined grisly accusations of war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.
The Kremlin has previously denied that its forces commit war crimes or deliberately target civilians. The Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
In Kherson, more than 1,000 Ukrainians gave first-hand accounts of their time in the torture centers, which were located in basements of abandoned buildings as well as in former prisons. More than 400 people were also reported to have vanished from Kherson torture sites, but it is not clear if they were killed or taken to Russian-held territory.
The torture sites served a variety of purposes, including, detention, interrogation, re-education and physical beatings.
Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/02/ukraine-russia-war-kherson-torture-centers-financed-by-kremlin.html