Dmytro Lubinets, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, said that about 86% of Ukrainian soldiers who returned from Russian captivity had suffered direct physical abuse.

‘We open our proceedings for each returned serviceman, record the facts, which once again confirm the dishonorable treatment of prisoners of war. Regarding torture, according to our data, 86% of those who returned from captivity reported direct physical torture’, Lubinets said in an interview to Ukrainska Pravda.

He stressed that the international human rights mission of the United Nations also established the facts of torture.

The ombudsman did not specify what kind of torture he was talking about, explaining that ‘Russians begin to treat our prisoners of war even more cruelly’ when such facts are voiced.

Lubinets also said that the Russian Federation currently holds more than 20,000 Ukrainian civilians hostage.