Torture in Occupied Ukraine: The Reckoning Project files a criminal complaint in Republic of Argentina

On April 15th,  an initiative of Ukrainian and international journalists and lawyers “The Reckoning Project” to document war crimes, together with the victim present in Buenos Aires, submitted a criminal complaint to the Argentine Federal Judiciary.

The complaint makes a request to the Federal Court to investigate torture inflicted against Mr M (anonymized for security reasons) by identified and unidentified Russian officials and affiliated individuals, for committing and otherwise facilitating torture. This is the first-ever Ukrainian torture complaint filed in Argentina.  

The evidence provided by Mr M in the complaint demonstrates practices of torture by electrocution in detention at the hands of Russian individuals in a town that is occupied by Russian forces. His evidence was corroborated by findings of international organizations, including the United Nations, that documented similar instances of torture upon other individuals in the same facility. Mr M’s torture was materially assisted by the presence and operation of Russian-linked entities and those in charge therein. 

Mr M, recalling those detained with him stated:

"I am one of many. So many other people I know were subjected to even worse treatment. I want to tell the world about our pain. These practices continue to happen in Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia.”

Accompanying Mr M from Ukraine is Nataliya Gumenyuk, a Ukrainian journalist, co-founder of The Reckoning Project, and CEO of the Public Interest Journalism Lab. She stresses that the overwhelming evidence of torture against civilians in Ukraine requires the international community to support justice:

“Within the last two years just our team, which is relatively small, recorded over a hundred