Comment by the MFA of Ukraine on the Decision of the Russian Government to Denounce the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine draws the attention of the international community to the decision of the Government of the Russian Federation to initiate the denunciation of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

This step is, in fact, an admission of guilt — acknowledgment of Russia’s systemic practice of torture and its attempt to avoid accountability for gross violations of human rights. 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.

Unlike many other international treaties in this sphere, which rely primarily on declarations, reporting, or periodic reviews, the Convention contains a preventive mechanism of both regular and ad hoc visits to places of detention by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), aimed at directly assessing conditions of detention and treatment of individuals.

Since February 2022, Ukraine has consistently insisted, and continues to insist, on Russia’s exclusion from all cooperation mechanisms within the Council of Europe. This is based on the deep awareness that Russia has turned into a totalitarian state dominated by a repressive apparatus that systematically violates human rights, undermines democracy, and disregards the rule of law.

It was only the procedural provisions of the Convention, which do not envisage the forced expulsion of a state party, that allowed Russia to remain formally bound by this important international legal instrument. In practice, however, Russia was dismantling the Convention’s mechanism: it refrained from meaningful participation in the CPT’s work and denied Committee experts access to its territory to monitor and document the situation regarding torture.

This fits into Russia’s broader pattern of blocking independent access, including denying the International Committee of the Red Cross full access to places of detention, including facilities 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.

It was Ukraine’s consistent political, legal, and public pressure in the Council of Europe and other international fora, systematic documentation of crimes, and mobilization of partners that 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. Ukraine calls for the swift and effective use of international accountability mechanisms and urges the international community to act decisively and without delay.