Nathaniel Raymond, a key leader in the Conflict Observatory team at the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, discusses a recently released report about disappearances and detentions in Kherson Oblast in Ukraine. The report is the result of several weeks of intensive open-source data analysis and supporting imagery analysis by his team at the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. Excerpts:
What we found out
This report documents multiple alleged violations of international law by Russia’s military and security services, in particular the FSB. These violations include violations of the Geneva Convention, violations of the Convention against Torture, violations of the UDHR, and, most notably, where those rights are enshrined in part in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, particularly as it relates to torture; cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; enforced disappearances; detention; threats to relatives and loved ones, including threat of torture, detention for refusal to vote in the annexation referenda; et cetera. These violations also include alleged violations of the Rome Statute, particularly Article 7 and Article 8.
So, where we want to begin today is in February 2022, when U.S. Ambassador Bathsheba Crocker wrote to the then High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet warning that Russia may engage in operations that – and I’m going to read the bolded part of the letter here – that include “targeted killings, kidnappings, forced disappearances, unjust detentions, and the use of torture, would likely target those who oppose Russian actions.” Ambassador Crocker states that we – the State Department – “have credible information that indicates Russian forces are creating lists of identified Ukrainians to be killed or sent to camps following a military occupation.”
Why we’re starting here is that the evidence we are going to present to you today suggests that this is exactly what the Russians and their military intelligence services have been doing in Kherson Oblast and likely in other areas of Ukraine.
So, this alleged use of targeted lists suggests that – and our evidence shows that – these lists were prepared likely before the invasion but have been added to and edited afterwards, that they use social security records, that they use information from school records and principals and information about residents from building managers in apartment complexes. There’s also evidence that Russia’s forces have been using photographs of attendees at protests and that they’ve been targeting veterans, specifically of fighting in Donbas, members of the law enforcement community, emergency services personnel. And they’ve also been targeting Crimean Tatar leaders, especially affiliates of local Tatar groups. And they have been targeting protesters and online activists. You see the quote here: “It was a planned purge of the population. They took everyone who could in any way resist.”
So, we’ve documented, through the use of open-source information, including social media, including news reports, including statements by Russia itself, approximately 226 individuals in Kherson Oblast since Russia initially took control that have been disappeared or detained. The evidence is consistent with an intentional campaign of detention and disappearance. And this is one of the most disturbing findings, is that one-quarter of the individuals in this data set report what can constitute torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. And at least five deaths in custody or soon after being in custody appear to have allegedly occurred.
Unlike the Donetsk filtration system we documented in a previous report where proxy forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic were deeply engaged in those operations, these operations in Kherson seemed to have been largely led and executed by Russia’s military and the FSB. Approximately half of those detained or disappeared in our data set do not appear to have been released as of the fall or just before the fall of Kherson.
This is an important point, the last one, and for me it’s one of the most critical findings of the research, is that approximately half of this data set includes individuals who were taken at their home. That’s really a critical piece of corroboration about the use of targeted lists, because to target people at their home you have to know who you’re targeting and where they are.
What’s also interesting here in this last finding is that members of the Crimean Tatar population appear to be disproportionately targeted at checkpoints compared to non-Tatar community members. And this disparity or difference between how Tatar and non-Tatar community members who’ve been targeted and detained and where they’ve been targeted is one of the most, I think, critical findings of the report.
My experience
I have been working on documenting torture cases now for about 23 years, and one thing I’ve learned during that time is that those who are subjected to torture usually under-report what they have been through, especially in cases involving sexual gender-based violence and psychological torture and humiliation. What – why I’m saying that is that experience, for those of us who have been documenting torture cases, makes these numbers shocking that we have 55 people amongst the data set alleging torture in very commonly repeating themes in terms of the tactics used: stress positions, beatings, electric shock, sexual gender-based violence which includes in six cases individuals being subjected to SGBV or threatened with it, including beating of – intentional beating of genitals.
What also stands out here is the use of mock executions, including Russian roulette on multiple detainees and the use of sleep deprivation, sensory overload, temperature manipulation, which are commonly seen in terms of interrogation settings and have been known to be used by the FSB in the past. There was a clear theme of conditions of confinement that rose to the level of alleged cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, including a lack of medical care for those who’d been injured – including injured during confinement – overcrowding, insufficient food and water – and that propaganda videos also were seen, that 12 individuals reported being forced to record some form of a propaganda video, which is a violation of international law.
The last point on this slide is the first bullet. At least four deaths in custody were reported, including one immediately following of an individual who had been released who had been allegedly subjected to techniques tantamount to torture.
So, an introductory point here to the detention checkpoint locations. We identified 12 locations with high confidence. For operational security reasons, even though Kherson fell after the report was released, we are not identifying the specific locations and names for various reasons. One, we do not know where all of the alleged detainees in this data set were or are. Additionally, we want to make sure that evidence at those sites is held by the proper authorities with the right chain of custody procedure. So these locations have been shared with those who need to have them. And because we’re not listing these names and specific locations, it doesn’t mean we don’t have them; we do.
In terms of checkpoints – and you’ll see some imagery examples here in a moment – the checkpoints were extremely common. And we – as we mentioned before, they appear to be the locus point for the detention of – or of the initial capture of Tatar members of the community.
Capture-and-kill lists
One, this is corroboration of concerns expressed by the U.S. Government prior to Russia’s invasion that targeted capture-and-kill lists would likely be used by Russia and its military and intelligence services. Second, that there is clear evidence of targeting of Crimean Tatars and of targeting of civil society members through the use of both snatch-and-grab at checkpoints and house-to-house abductions. Third and finally, there is clear evidence of deaths in custody and the widespread use of techniques widely recognized as constituting torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, including mock executions, SGBV, beatings, stress positions, electric shock. And this resulted in at least as many as five deaths – four of them in custody and one soon after.
The last point to end on here before we go to questions is that – and it really is probably the most telling part of our research – the 226 individuals in this data set, why 226? Well, we could have kept going; there were so many cases. But at some point, we had to stop and present the evidence we had. So, as Caitlin mentioned, this is not a representative sample, and unfortunately it is probably only a fraction of the available incidents of individuals being detained, allegedly tortured, and in some cases disappeared.
So, this is not just an accountability issue in terms of alleged war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity. It is also a humanitarian issue and a humanitarian emergency in terms of identifying the remains of any individuals who died in this system, of working with loved ones who are desperately trying to find out where their family members are, and of providing psychosocial support and health care to survivors of this system that appears to be relying on the widespread use of torture.
FSB’s activities
First, what we are seeing here is consistent with FSB activity, both inside Russia and elsewhere outside Russia. Sadly, there was nothing that we found that was particularly surprising for those who have studied the methods and record of the FSB in terms of their role in detention and interrogation.
Impunity for past crimes is the most effective recipe for the committal of future crimes. The culture of impunity that has existed in Russia in the Putin regime and the actions of security services on Russia’s people show clearly that the behavior in Kherson is not an anomaly, it is simply an import into the Kherson Oblast of alleged methods used within Russia by security services there on their own people. And again to stress, impunity for crimes in the past will lead to crimes in the – today and the future.
Doing more research in this region
At this point, we are for the moment on other priorities, which hopefully we will be able to share the output of that with you soon. In terms of looking at our work on Donetsk filtration system as a precedent, once we do an investigation we constantly continue to revisit it and look for additional information that allow us to both confirm or refute our previous findings and expand upon them.
So, at this point, while we do not have anything new on Kherson, we assume with past liberated areas as precedent that we will have more. And when we do have more, we will report it. At this point, what we are most interested in is building on the Kherson work into any other recently liberated areas or areas that may be liberated in the future to see if we can detect patterns consistent with what we have seen either in Kherson or Donetsk. So we are still on the case. For the moment, we have shifted to another priority, but we have a watching brief on Kherson and similar activities. So the answer is yes.
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