DISINFO: Kyiv is using medical personnel to torture Russian POWs
SUMMARY
The Russian Foreign Ministry constantly draws the attention of the international community to the crimes of the Kyiv regime. Reports of human rights violations have been published by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which added another one to this list - the systematic use of medical personnel to torture prisoners of war. The report presents numerous testimonies of victims recorded by the International Public Tribunal for Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis; and that these testimonies prove that, like Mengele, Ukrainian doctors perform operations and medical manipulations on captured Russian servicemen without anaesthesia, deliberately causing them pain and torturing them.
RESPONSE
An unsubstantiated claim from pro-Kremlin outlets, portraying Ukraine as a Nazi, terrorist country, which violates human rights and commits war crimes. Allegations made solely by Russian authorities cannot be considered as such, given their proven history of making unsubstantiated claims based on faked or inexistent proofs, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine is committed to treat POWs in accordance with the Geneva Convention through the National Information Bureau (NIB) and the Red Cross. According to the latest report of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) available when this disinformation story appeared, there have been some cases of mistreatment and abuses against some Russian POWs in facilities outside of Ukraine’s formal structure, but they appear to be isolated and properly addressed by Ukrainian authorities. The report mentions ongoing criminal investigations by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine on some of these abuses.
Previous disinformation narratives about Ukraine torturing Russian POWs have been addressed here.
Claims about Ukraine being a Nazi State, in order to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine started in 2022 have already been widely debunked. See our article The Kremlin’s misuse of Nazism as a weapon of information manipulation.
Labelling Russia’s adversaries as Nazis is a widespread pro-Kremlin disinformation technique, and has been used by Russia to try to justify the invasion of Ukraine by portraying it as a “denazification operation”. Russia spent years preparing the information battleground prior to its full-scale invasion, with “Nazi Ukraine” being one of its most prominent disinformation features.
Read our analysis titled Key narratives in pro-kremlin disinformation: “Nazis” and "Why does Putin portray himself as the tamer of neo-Nazism".
Read also similar disinformation cases claiming that Russian soldiers suffer tortures in Ukrainian clandestine prisons, that UN report exposes torture of Russian POWs in Ukraine, that There is no torture of Ukrainian POWs in Russia, that Ukraine systematically tortures Russian prisoners, that Russia treats Ukrainian prisoners of war well, that Ukrainian forces burn bodies to cover their crimes, that a UN report on Russian atrocities in Ukraine is not supported by evidence, that Ukraine will build concentration camps for captured Russians, or that Ukraine violates international humanitarian law while Russia respects it.