Ukrainian investigators uncover children’s cell in Russian ‘torture chamber’

Ukrainian parliament commissioner for human rights says they found ‘10 torture chambers in Kherson region’

Ukraine said it has unearthed a cell inside a torture chamber in Kherson where children were allegedly detained and mistreated.

Ukrainian parliament commissioner for human rights Dmytro Lubinets said the cell was in one of the four torture centres operated by Russian troops in Kherson.

During a media briefing, Mr Lubinets said they found “10 torture chambers in Kherson region, four in the city of Kherson”.

He continued: “In one of the torture chambers we found a separate room, a cell where children were kept … even the occupiers called it that, a children’s cell.”

The senior human rights advocate said that Ukrainian children detained in those cells were not provided with water daily and that they were given water every other day. “They were practically not given food,” Mr Lubinets added.

“They used psychological pressure. They told them their parents had abandoned them and would not return.”

Mr Lubinets’s allegations could not be verified independently and the human rights advocate himself did not provide any evidence of his assertions.

“I thought that the bottom could not be broken after Bucha, Irpen,” Mr Lubinets told the media, referencing areas north of Kyiv that saw mass killings and reports of torture immediately following Russia’s invasion in February.

“I personally saw two torture chambers in Balaklia, which were located opposite each other,” he added in reference to a town in the Kharkiv region, which was retaken by Ukrainian forces in September.

The only difference from the conditions of the children’s cell with that of the other prisoners was they were given three “thin” mats to lay on, he claimed.

He cited the example of a 14-year-old boy who was detained for taking pictures of damaged Russian military equipment.

“These were children who, in the eyes of the invaders, were resisting.”

He said that some 12,000 Ukrainian children had been taken to Russia since the invasion began in February, including 8,600 taken by force. However, Russia has denied these allegations.

Kyiv Independent reported that prosecutors say at least 443 children have been killed and more than 855 wounded since February when the war started. It added though that the real figures are expected to be higher since “they don’t include the number of victims in Mariupol and Volnovakha, the once-besieged cities in eastern Donetsk Oblast that were heavily bombarded and are now under Russian occupation”.

Daria Herasymchuk, Ukraine’s presidential advisor for children’s rights and rehabilitation, said earlier this month that Russia has already illegally deported more than 13,000 Ukrainian children, but underscored that “this, unfortunately, is not the final figure.”

“We still have to learn about at least tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who were stolen by the Russian authorities,” she said.

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russia was not planning a “Christmas ceasefire” in Ukraine and has not received any proposals about it.