Kateryna Odarchenko writes:

In recent months, US-led efforts to initiate a Russia-Ukraine peace process have focused primarily on the issue of potential Ukrainian territorial concessions. But as negotiating teams discuss technical details and draw lines on maps, almost no attention is being paid to the desperate plight of the millions of Ukrainians currently living under Russian occupation.

Throughout occupied Ukraine, the Russian authorities are seeking to consolidate their control by eradicating all traces of Ukrainian statehood and national identity while imposing a reign of terror on the civilian population. If these Russian occupation policies are allowed to pass unchallenged in the international arena, it will set a disastrous precedent for the use of force against civilians and the weaponization of national identity in other contested regions globally.

From the very first days of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, it was clear that Russia intended to entrench itself firmly in occupied regions of Ukraine. Russian troops often arrived armed with lists of local community leaders including elected officials, journalists, activists, religious figures, and military veterans. Those who refused to cooperate were likely to be detained before disappearing into a vast network of Russian prisons and camps.

Ukrainian detainees are being systematically subjected to torture and other human rights abuses, according to an international investigation led by the French group Forbidden Stories together with thirteen media outlets including Britain’s Guardian newspaper, the Washington Post, and Le Monde. While it is not possible to calculate exactly how many Ukrainian civilians have been abducted in the occupied regions, UN officials have concluded that the large scale and systematic nature of the disappearances qualifies as a crime against humanity. [Continue reading…]