News
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and its partners — the Media Initiative for Human Rights and the ZMINA Human Rights Center — have been documenting crimes committed by Russian military personnel and other representatives of the Russian authorities against the civilian population of Ukraine in the occupied territories.
15 July 2025
An activist from Nova Kakhovka, Oleksandr (his surname withheld for security reasons), filmed the dismantling of Lenin monuments across the Kherson region before the full-scale invasion. After the occupation began, he became a target for the Russians. He was tortured for two weeks in order to force him to reveal the identities of other civic leaders in the city and to “cooperate” with the occupiers.
25 June 2025
The European Parliament held a debate on the draft resolution “The human cost of Russia’s war against Ukraine: the dramatic situation of illegally detained Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war.” The document condemns the widespread unlawful detention of Ukrainians, torture, fabricated charges, and inhumane conditions of imprisonment.
17 June 2025
The Russian military prosecutor’s office claims that Spanish volunteer Mariano Garcia Calatayud left Crimea for the Kherson region. Before that, he had been held for over a year in a detention center in Simferopol after being abducted in Kherson. The current whereabouts of the 77-year-old man, who suffered a heart attack while in captivity, remain unknown, and his relatives continue to search for him.
13 June 2025
The Bosnian War officially began on April 6, 1992, and lasted for four years. According to various estimates, around 100,000 people were killed during the conflict, with another 31,000 reported missing. Over 2 million people were displaced both within the country and beyond its borders. More than three decades have passed since then, yet most families have not returned to their homes. Around 8,000 missing persons are still being searched for to this day.
12 June 2025
Confession in front of the camera, as if during interrogation: in Crimea, 65-year-old Yevhen Nenko from the Luhansk region was publicly forced to “repent” for pro-Ukrainian graffiti. The man is just one example among dozens of Ukrainian civilians the Russian Federation detained or convicted in May under fabricated charges of espionage, extremism, or assisting the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The scale of political repression is growing, and the human stories are becoming increasingly harrowing.
10 June 2025