At least 20 torture chambers in Kherson were created and financed by the Kremlin – international lawyers
They were run by Russian security agencies, including the FSB
A network of at least 20 torture rooms discovered in de-occupied Kherson was created and directly funded by the Russian state, a group of international investigators said on Thursday, based on evidence they have obtained.
Source. CNBC writes about it.
The group, which calls itself the Mobile Justice Team, established in May 2022 and sponsored by humanitarian institutions in Britain, the EU and the United States, is investigating war crimes in Ukraine in cooperation with Ukrainian investigators from the Prosecutor General's Office.
"In close cooperation with the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine, a paper trail has been uncovered that shows that the main torture facilities in Kherson and those who run them are doing so with the financial support of the Russian state," international human rights lawyer Wayne Jordash, managing partner of the law firm Global Rights Compliance, tells CNBC.
Jordash adds that a team of lawyers, experts and investigators found that the torture chambers were directly run by several Kremlin security agencies, including the FSB.
Kherson, where the torture was discovered in January, had been under Russian occupation for more than eight months and was liberated by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in November last year.
The investigation team has so far found that about 200 people were tortured in ten of the 20 premises.
The eyewitnesses who survived the torture described what happened there. According to them, among other methods, stun guns and suffocation torture were used against them.
It is believed that at least a thousand civilians were tortured in Kherson. More than 400 citizens are considered missing.
In total, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine is considering more than 71,000 allegations of war crimes committed across the country since the Russian invasion in February 2022.