Amnesty says torture is ‘commonplace’ for Ukraine war prisoners

There is “overwhelming evidence of ongoing war crimes” being committed by both sides in eastern Ukraine on a daily basis, including the torture of prisoners and summary killings, according to a damning new report from Amnesty International.

The rights group said it interviewed 17 captives of the separatists and another 16 held by government forces for its report and that both said they faced savage beatings, torture with electric shocks, kicking and stabbings.

The mistreatment cataloged in the Amnesty report also includes instances of prisoners being hung from the ceiling, deprived of sleep for days and threatened with death.

Concern about the treatment of prisoners comes as Ukrainian authorities face scrutiny this week for publicly parading two men they say were Russian soldiers captured while fighting alongside separatists.

Hundreds of Ukrainian troops are believed to have been captured by rebel forces in the yearlong war that has claimed more than 6,100 lives. Both sides routinely accuse one another of mistreating captives. Under a February peace agreement, all war prisoners had been due for release in early March, but little progress has been achieved.

“In the shadow of eastern Ukraine's still-smoldering conflict, our on-the-ground research shows that accounts of detainee torture are as commonplace as they are shocking,” Amnesty International representative John Dalhuisen said. “The Ukrainian authorities must investigate all allegations of war crimes and other abuses ... and bring to justice all those responsible for perpetrating such heinous acts.”

The group is urging U.N. agencies and experts to visit detention sites in Ukraine to meet those being held by both sides. Amnesty said the worst abuse tends to occur during the first days of captivity and that groups operating largely outside the chain of command are the most violent.

“The situation on the separatist side is particularly chaotic, with a variety of different groups holding captives in at least a dozen known locations,” Amnesty said.

It identified Ukraine's Right Sector nationalist militia as one of the worst culprits on the pro-government side.

"Right Sector has reportedly held dozens of civilian prisoners as hostages, brutally torturing them and extorting large amounts of money from them and their families," the group said.

Amnesty says attempts to get Ukrainian authorities to address complaints over Right Sector have been ignored. But the Ukrainian Security Service said Friday it is open to dialogue with international rights organizations and said it will meet with Amnesty to discuss the report. 

Eduard Basurin, a spokesman for rebel forces in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk, refuted Amnesty's findings.

“They constantly make these accusations but they are never able to provide any evidence,” Basurin told The Associated Press by telephone.

But Amnesty said it has corroborated the accounts it collected with evidence such as X-rays of broken bones, medical records and photographs of injuries.

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press