Ukrainians are being arbitrarily detained and subjected to enforced disappearances in Russian-controlled areas, the UN has told the BBC.
BBC reported that at least 36 cases of civilian detentions were verified by the UN, with families often denied any information about the fate of those being held.
Ukraine earlier accused Moscow of forcibly removing hundreds of thousands of civilians from shattered Ukrainian cities to Russia to pressure Kyiv to give up, while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged his country to keep up its military defense and not stop “even for a minute.”
Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsperson, said 402,000 people, including 84,000 children, had been taken against their will into Russia, where some may be used as “hostages” to pressure Kyiv to surrender.
The Kremlin gave nearly identical numbers for those who have been relocated, but said they wanted to go to Russia. Ukraine’s rebel-controlled eastern regions are predominantly Russian-speaking, and many people there have supported close ties to Moscow.
With the war headed into a second month, the two sides traded heavy blows in what has become a devastating war of attrition. Ukraine’s navy said it sank a large Russian landing ship near the port city of Berdyansk that had been used to bring in armored vehicles. Russia claimed to have taken the eastern town of Izyum after fierce fighting.
A spokesperson for the UN's Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNOHR), whose monitoring mission in Ukraine has been documenting the abductions, told the BBC that those being targeted "are mostly representatives of local communities, journalists and people who were vocal about their pro-Ukrainian positions".
But they said they were not able to assess whether those being detained form part of "targeted lists reportedly drawn up by Russian security officials".
At an emergency NATO summit in Brussels Thursday, Zelenskyy pleaded with the Western allies via video for planes, tanks, rockets, air defense systems and other weapons, saying his country is “defending our common values.”
U.S President Joe Biden, in Europe for the summit and other high-level meetings, gave assurances that more aid was on the way, though it appeared unlikely the West would give Zelenskyy everything he wanted, for fear of triggering a much wider war.
(with inputs from AP)
