The American report, which did not receive a great response in the press, tells about political murders, abuse of authorities, and torture of prisoners, which is a significant difference compared to the way in which the diplomacy of the United States has viewed Ukraine since the outbreak of the war.
In the 2021 country report of the institutes belonging to the US foreign affairs - the Bureau of Democracy and Human Rights and Labor - Ukraine is far from being listed as a model democracy worthy of the Sakharov Prize report , which otherwise examined 194 countries but received relatively little media attention, pointed to serious abuses in connection with the country.
The more interesting findings of the 99-page document are the following:
"According to credible reports of abuses by members of the security forces",
- in addition, there have been unlawful or arbitrary killings, including those committed by the government or its agents,
- prisoners were kept in life-threatening conditions in prisons, others were tortured by their captors,
- there have been numerous arbitrary arrests by the Ukrainian security forces, as well as
- they revealed serious problems with the independence of the judiciary.
In addition, systematic violence against ethnic minorities is included in the report, but only crimes committed against Roma, primarily by hooligans, were included in the report - Hungarians were left out - as violence against members of the LGBT community also received more attention.
The findings regarding Donbas, which is under Russian occupation, are particularly interesting. The report also mentions atrocities committed by Russian or pro-Russian authorities, but at the same time highlights:
both sides committed such atrocities in the region,
including torture and murder by the government or its authorities. Just as censorship and violence against journalists were part of their toolkit, and besides, they did not excel in investigating abuses. By the way, according to the UN human rights watchdog, the majority of detentions related to the conflict were committed by people of the Ukrainian authorities.
Comparing the country reports of the two parties, there are strikingly many similarities, although the US State Department's institutes for Russia miss free elections in the report for 2021 compared to Ukraine.
In addition to the crimes committed by Russian soldiers during the war, the Ukrainians did not remain unsullied either, as Amnesty International, which can hardly be accused of being pro-Russian, spoke about this in its report written in August.
Featured Image: Yandex
