United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has placed Israel and Russia “on notice” that they could be listed next year among parties “credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence,” according to his annual report to the Security Council on conflict-related sexual violence obtained by Reuters.

The warning stems from “significant concerns regarding patterns of certain forms of sexual violence that have been consistently documented by the United Nations,” Guterres wrote in the report released.

Regarding Russian forces, Guterres said he was “gravely concerned about credible information of violations by Russian armed and security forces and affiliated armed groups” primarily against Ukrainian prisoners of war in 50 official and 22 unofficial detention facilities across Ukraine and Russia.

“These cases comprised a significant number of documented incidents of genital violence, including electrocution, beatings and burns to the genitals, and forced stripping and prolonged nudity, used to humiliate and elicit confessions or information,” the Secretary-General said.

The report notes that Russian authorities have not engaged with Guterres’ special envoy on sexual violence in conflict since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Israel faces similar scrutiny over documented violations in Palestinian detention facilities. Guterres expressed grave concern about “credible information of violations by Israeli armed and security forces” against Palestinians in several prisons, a detention center and a military base.

“Cases documented by the United Nations indicate patterns of sexual violence such as genital violence, prolonged forced nudity and repeated strip searches conducted in an abusive and degrading manner,” the report states.

Russia’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on the report.

The UN sounds the alarm. Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are held in overcrowded, unsanitary prisons on occupied Ukrainian territories, as well as in Belarus and Russia, Alice Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, reveals in an article for The New York Times. 

Most Ukrainian prisoners are isolated from the outside world and subjected to systematic torture, starvation, and psychological abuse. 

“Investigating and prosecuting torture is a legal obligation, not a diplomatic nicety or something that can be negotiated or leveraged during negotiations,” Edwards stresses.

Russia legalizes torture as a military tactic

Edwards concluded that only one party in the conflict employs torture as a state policy — Russia.

“ …Widespread nature of witness accounts while in Russian custody — along with Moscow’s failure to address the issue — have led me to the conclusion that it can only be a systemic, state-endorsed practice approved at the highest levels,” she says.

Torture methods are shockingly brutal: sexual violence, electric shocks, suffocation, sleep deprivation, mock executions.

“Malnourishment is routine, and individuals have reported being hung upside down and held in stress positions for long periods, sometimes beaten during it,” Edwards noted.

Victims’ testimonies: “Threatened with castration and rape”

For example, Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr Kharlats, captured early in the war, described six or seven torture sessions with electric shocks, forced to keep his arms along his body to intensify pain, and beaten with batons and rifle butts when convulsing.

Another prisoner, Anatoliy Tutov, endured four interrogations with beatings and sexual torture, including a threat to cut off his penis and rape him. Upon release, doctors documented internal bruises, two broken ribs, and cracked bones.

Another prisoner, a woman from occupied Kherson, was abducted on her way to work, raped, and electrocuted on her first day in captivity. She has been transferred between prisons and is now held in a Russian facility.

As of June 2025, Ukraine has documented 366 cases of sexual violence committed in connection with Russia's full-scale war, the Foreign Ministry reported on June 19, citing data from the Prosecutor General's Office.

The statement was published on the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, marked every year on June 19.

The victims include 231 women, 134 men, and 19 children. The documented crimes span rape, sexual torture, forced nudity, and other violent acts, many of which occurred in occupied territories or during the early stages of Russia's invasion.

Sexual violence in conflict is prohibited under the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols, which mandate the protection of civilians, especially women and children. It is also recognized as a war crime under international law.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said Russia is "grossly violating international humanitarian law" and the legal framework established by multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The ministry said that Moscow has employed sexual violence "as a weapon of war" to terrorize civilians, destroy communities, and weaken resistance.

Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya, raised the issue at the Security Council in April 2024, warning that such violence is being used against both civilians and prisoners of war.

In June 2024, the Kyiv Independent identified two Russian soldiers implicated in the rape of women during Russia's occupation of parts of Kyiv and Kherson oblasts in March 2022.

One of them, Mykola Senenko, was formally charged by Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office for a rape committed in Kherson Oblast.

Trump’s peace push falters in both Ukraine and the Middle East — for similar reasons

U.S. President Donald Trump addressed a wide range of subjects during his inauguration speech. When speaking about international relations, he was adamant — “Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity,” he said, talking about Russia’s war against Ukraine and the fighting in the Middle

The Kyiv IndependentOleg Sukhov