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337 Ukrainian POWs Executed as Russia “Turns Torture Into State Policy,” Ombudsman Says
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![Photo of Dariia Mykhailenko]( "Photo of Dariia Mykhailenko")
By the end of 2025, Russian forces had executed 337 Ukrainian prisoners of war, according to Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, speaking during an interactive dialogue with the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture at a session of the UN Human Rights Council on March 3.
“Russia has turned torture into a state policy and uses it as a weapon. According to UN data, more than 95% of Ukrainian prisoners of war are subjected to systematic torture, and as of the end of 2025, 337 Ukrainian prisoners of war were deliberately and brutally executed by Russians,” Lubinets stated.
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The Ombudsman urged the international community to immediately increase pressure on Russia to ensure that every crime is documented and those responsible are held accountable.
“This topic is critically important—the world cannot remain on the sidelines,” he concluded.
Four years after the commencement of Russia's full-scale invasion, the scale of the war is evidenced by documented data.
The data accumulated over four years of full-scale hostilities stands in contrast to the Russian narrative, which continues to label the invasion a “special military operation” while obscuring its actual cost.
As of January 2026, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine has registered more than 212,947 war crimes attributed to Russian forces, with an average of 200 to 300 additional cases being documented daily.
The documented statistics concerning fatalities, injuries, sexual violence, child abductions, and the destruction of both cultural heritage and infrastructure serve as indicators of the systematic nature of Russian military aggression over the last four years.
However, these verified totals likely represent a conservative estimate. Investigative access remains restricted in frontline and Russian-occupied territories, where the destruction of evidence and the potential for witness intimidation often prevent the reporting of crimes. The actual scope of the war’s impact is expected to exceed the currently available data.
Earlier, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly approved a Ukrainian-supported resolution regarding Russian military actions. The document, which passed with a large majority, formally censures the ongoing aggression.
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-c439b7bd9030ecf9d5a4287dc361ba31.jpg "Photo of Katherina Popilnichenko")
