Russia’s denunciation of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is, in fact, an admission of guilt.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine stated this in its Comment, Ukrinform reports.
The MFA draws the international community’s attention to this decision and emphasizes Russia’s systematic practice of torture and its attempts to evade accountability for gross human rights violations.
“Today’s Russia is a territory of lawlessness and degradation of human dignity. The decision to withdraw from the Convention against Torture only consolidates this reality and firmly places Russia among those states for which human life and dignity mean nothing,” the statement said.
The Ministry highlighted that the Convention contains a preventive mechanism, including both regular and ad hoc visits to places of detention by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) to directly inspect conditions and treatment of people.
Since February 2022, Ukraine has consistently insisted on excluding Russia from all cooperation mechanisms within the Council of Europe due to its transformation into a totalitarian state dominated by a repressive apparatus that systematically violates human rights, undermines democracy, and disregards the rule of law.
Russia effectively undermined the Convention’s mechanism: it did not participate meaningfully in CPT work and denied Committee experts access to its territory to investigate and document the situation regarding torture, the MFA noted.
Ukraine’s Ministry also emphasized that denunciation of the Convention fits into Russia’s broader practice of blocking independent access, including denying the International Committee of the Red Cross full access to detention sites, including places holding prisoners of war.
“All this demonstrates Russia’s consistent efforts to “shut down” any channels of international oversight, conceal from the world the horrific truth about its system of torture chambers, and revive its notorious reputation as a prison empire,” the MFA stressed.
According to Ukraine’s Ministry, consistent political, legal, and public pressure from Ukraine in the Council of Europe and other international formats, along with systematic documentation of crimes and partner mobilization, has deprived Russia of the opportunity to simulate “cooperation” with mechanisms for the prevention of torture and led to the formalization of its desire to avoid independent scrutiny.
“A state that employs torture as an integral element of its policy cannot be a party to a Convention meant to unite rule-of-law states. Accountability of the aggressor state for its numerous crimes, including torture, must be inevitable,” the statement said.
Ukraine also insists on the swift use of international accountability mechanisms and calls on the global community to act actively and without delay.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also noted that the Russian government’s move to denounce the Convention for the Prevention of Torture demonstrates once again that Russia is a lawless territory where human life and dignity are worthless.
“This move comes as a continuation of many Russian crimes, including widespread torture, executions, and inhuman treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war. This is part of the Russian regime’s systemic policy of torture, which is deeply rooted in Russian history, building on the crimes of the Gulag and Stalin’s terror,” Sybiha stresses.
As reported, the Russian government proposed denouncing the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
