Ukraine’s public prosecutor’s office announced on Monday that it had found four “torture sites” used by the Russians in Kherson before their forced retreat from the region ten days ago, kyiv accusing Moscow of war crimes.
Moreover, following the shootings, of undetermined origin, which fell on Sunday inside the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant, French Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted on Monday, during a telephone call, on ” the absolute necessity of preserving the safety and security” of the site.
In kyiv, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Europe, Hans Kluge, also warned that winter will threaten the lives of millions of Ukrainians, after the series of devastating Russian strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure.
“This winter will put the lives of millions of people in Ukraine at risk,” Kluge said. “To put it simply, this winter will be about survival.”
The damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure “is already having devastating effects on the health system and on the health of the population”, he added.
In Moscow, the Kremlin has promised to punish those responsible for the death of a group of Russian soldiers in Ukraine, denounced by Moscow as an execution, while kyiv claims that these soldiers were killed after a false surrender.
A Russian strike also left one dead and three injured in Kherson, according to the deputy head of the presidency, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, who did not give further details.
“In Kherson, prosecutors continue to establish Russia’s crimes: torture sites have been established in four buildings,” the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said on Telegram.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the Ukrainian investigators went to “four” buildings, including pre-war “pre-war detention centres”, “where, during the capture of the city, the occupants illegally detained people and brutally tortured”.
“Pieces of rubber truncheons, a wooden bat, a device used by the occupiers to shock civilians, an incandescent lamp and bullets […] were seized,” added the same source, ten days after the recapture of Kherson by the Ukrainian army following a counter-offensive that lasted two months.
“The work to establish the places of the chambers of torture and illegal detention continues,” said the Ukrainian general prosecutor’s office, adding that it wanted to “identify all the victims”.
Since the liberation of Kherson on November 11, kyiv has repeatedly denounced Russian “war crimes” and “atrocities” in the Kherson region.
Moscow has, at this stage, not reacted to these accusations.
” To punish “
The Kremlin accuses the Ukrainians in return, and promised Monday to punish those responsible for the death of a group of Russian soldiers in Ukraine, denounced as a “war crime”.
Based on videos posted on social networks, Russia claims that the Ukrainian army executed more than ten of its soldiers who had laid down their arms.
“Naturally Russia will itself search for those who committed this crime. They must be found and punished,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
He added that Moscow would turn to international bodies for this purpose, “if this can be useful”.
On the first video, a dozen soldiers presumed to be Russian come out one after the other from a shelter, hands in the air, and lie face down on the ground under the injunction of apparently Ukrainian soldiers who hold them at gunpoint.
The video abruptly ends when a last silhouette emerges from the shelter and seems to open fire. Another video filmed by a drone shows the same place with a dozen bodies of soldiers lying in pools of blood.
On Sunday, Ukrainian human rights official Dmytro Lubynets said the videos actually showed a “feigned surrender” and that Russian soldiers had, under international law, “committed a war crime by opening the fire on the Ukrainian armed forces” after pretending to surrender.
The Russian soldiers killed in this incident “cannot therefore be considered as prisoners of war”, he argued.
9 years ago, Euromaidan
According to the French presidency, Mr. Macron “said his deep concern” about the “new firings against the power plant” in Ukraine, which Moscow and kyiv mutually accuse each other of having bombed.
He had already discussed it on Sunday with the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, who had denounced the “absolutely deliberate, targeted” strikes.
Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky “recalled that it was the illegal occupation of the power station by Russia which was at the origin of the current situation”, reported the Elysée.
Under the snow, Ukraine celebrated on Monday the 9th anniversary of the start of the pro-Western “Euromaidan” revolution, which led to the dismissal of a pro-Russian president at the cost of a crackdown that had done more than 100 dead.
In return, Russia had annexed Crimea and stirred up an armed rebellion in the Donbass.