Kremlin ‘financed’ 20 torture chambers in Kherson: report

The Kremlin “planned and directly financed” at least 20 torture chambers in a “genocidal” plan to “extinguish Ukrainian identity,” according to war crimes investigators.

The sites in newly liberated Kherson “were used to subjugate, re-educate or kill Ukrainian civic leaders and ordinary dissenters,” including journalists and teachers, according to a harrowing report by the Mobile Justice Team.

Russian troops inflicted “physical beatings, electric shock torture and waterboarding” at the grim centers, according to the team working in support of Ukrainian war crimes prosecutors.

The investigators cited new evidence based on at least 1,000 survivors, some held just for having “pro-Ukraine” materials on their phones.

Alarmingly, at least 400 people have also been documented as having “vanished.”

“It remains unknown whether they have been killed or taken to Russian-held territory,” said the investigation team, established by the Global Rights Compliance humanitarian law firm.

The team’s report cited “financial records” as “showing a direct linkage between the torture centers and the Russian State.”

While 20 have been unearthed, “many more torture centers certainly exist around Ukraine in occupied areas and are being funded by Putin’s credit card,” said team leader Wayne Jordash, a British lawyer.

“The torture centers are the tip of the iceberg in Russia’s inherently criminal plan to subjugate or destroy Ukrainians,” said Jordash of ever-growing “evidence of war crimes.”

“They are designed to eliminate and destroy large parts of the Ukrainian population in order to enable the remainder to be enslaved. 

“This is yet more evidence of genocidal tactics baked into Putin’s plan to extinguish Ukrainian identity in the areas under Russian occupation.”

Journalists on the ground reported on similar horrors in Kherson in January, with survivors saying then that they’d been tortured with electric shocks and suffocation techniques.

An investigation is also underway by the International Criminal Court into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Moscow, which calls its brutal war a “special military operation,” has denied committing war crimes or targeting civilians in Ukraine.

The Kremlin press office did not respond to a request for comment.

With Post wires