Former detainees accuse Russian guards of systematic torture in Ukraine

The allegations include beatings, electric shocks, stress positions, sleep deprivation, sexual violence and threats of execution, with survivors describing a violent “admission procedure” that greeted many arrivals. Former Ukrainian detainees are pressing for Russian guards and supervisors to face trial.

In September 2024, the United Nations Human Rights Office documented torture across detention centres. In October 2024, it found supervisors in those facilities were aware of the mistreatment and had the ability to stop it. By September 2025, the office had interviewed 215 released civilian detainees since June 2023 and concluded that Russian authorities had subjected Ukrainian civilian detainees to torture in a widespread and systematic manner.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine found additional evidence of common patterns of torture by Russian authorities against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war in occupied Ukrainian territories and in the Russian Federation. Sexual violence was recurrent, mainly against male victims, in almost all of these detention centres.

Rights groups identified torture as systematic in at least 29 prisons or detention centres. Ukraine identified 114 detention facilities in occupied parts of Ukraine and 28 Russian regions where Ukrainian detainees may be held. A separate report put the number of Ukrainian civilians in Russian prisons at about 20,000, including more than 2,000 women.

Detainees are often moved between sites, held incommunicado and denied access to independent monitors. That leaves prosecutors dependent on survivor testimony, transfer records, detention logs and evidence tying individual guards, supervisors and higher-ranking officials to specific prisons and dates. Memorial Human Rights Center’s monitoring mission to Ukraine from 17 to 30 January 2025 was part of its report on crimes committed during Russia’s full-scale invasion that began in February 2022.