Ukraine finds torture sites in Kherson

Ukraine said Monday that it had discovered four Russian torture sites in its southern city of Kherson, which Moscow’s forces quit this month leaving behind a trail of misery and destruction.

The Kremlin meanwhile vowed to track down and punish those it said were responsible for the “brutal” murder of nearly a dozen Russian servicemen who were allegedly surrendering to Kyiv.

Russian defence officials made the “difficult” decision earlier this month to retreat from Kherson city, the only regional capital Moscow’s forces had won after nearly nine months of fighting in Ukraine.

Kyiv accused the withdrawing forces of rendering useless key infrastructure including water and electricity stations in Kherson, whose loss is a strategic and symbolic blow for the Kremlin.

But on Monday, Kyiv also said Moscow had run a network of torture sites in the city, building on claims that Russian authorities had perpetrated abuses on a “horrific” scale there.

“Together with police officers and experts, (prosecutors) conducted inspections of four premises where, during the capture of the city, the occupiers illegally detained people and brutally tortured them,” the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said in a statement. Russian forces had also set up “pseudo-law enforcement agencies” at detention centres in Kherson as well as in a police station, prosecutors said in a statement.

The remains of rubber truncheons, a wooden bat and “a device with which the occupiers tortured civilians with electricity” were found, prosecutors statement said. Russian authorities also left behind paperwork documenting the administration of the detention sites, its office added.