Extrajudicial killings, sexual violence and forced labour among accusations upheld by court in judgment
Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent
Russia has committed flagrant and unprecedented abuses of human rights since it invaded Ukraine in 2014, including extrajudicial killings, sexual violence and forced labour, the European court of human rights has found.
The court’s grand chamber unanimously held that between 11 May 2014 and 16 September 2022, when Russia ceased to be a party to the European convention on human rights it had committed “manifestly unlawful conduct … on a massive scale”.
Pro-Russia armed groups entered the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine in 2014 and Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
In its judgment, published on Wednesday, the court said there was evidence of widespread and systemic use of sexual violence, accompanied by acts of torture, such as beatings, strangling or electric shocks. Civilians and prisoners of war were subjected to mock executions, the severing of body parts and electric shocks, including to intimate areas of their bodies, the court said….
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