By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin By — Zeba Warsi Zeba Warsi Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/un-investigator-outlines-evidence-of-russian-war-crimes-in-liberated-areas-of-ukraine Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio The Russian-installed leaders of occupied regions of Ukraine formerly announced the results of so-called referendums and said they wanted to join Russia. Erik Møse, the official in charge of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, joined Nick Schifrin to discuss crimes Russian forces committed in occupied territories. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Amna Nawaz: Now that the results of the sham referenda held in Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine have been announced, Russia could annex the territory within days. At the same time, Ukraine's military is pushing ahead with a counteroffensive that's already retaken some parts of those regions.Nick Schifrin looks at what Russian forces left behind and the crimes they committed. Nick Schifrin: At their peak, Russian forces captured nearly 20 percent of Ukraine, and, in each village, city and district they occupy, they leave behind a trail of horrorIn Bucha and Irpin, suburbs of Kyiv, more than 1,000 bodies buried in mass graves that you see there. In Izyum, outside Kharkiv, investigators have finished Zooming the bodies of more than 400 Ukrainians; 99 percent, according to Ukrainian officials, died from violence. And dozens, if not more, were tortured before they were killed.For the first time, last week, a group of U.N.-appointed experts presented preliminary evidence of Russian atrocities.The official in charge of the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine is Erik Møse, and he joins me now.Erik Møse, thank you very much. Welcome to the "NewsHour."Your commission visited 27 towns and settlements in Ukraine and interviewed more than 150 witnesses and victims. What is the scale of Russian war crimes?Erik Møse, United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine: Well, so far, we have investigated four areas of Ukraine.We have seen that there have been conduct of hostilities, where there were explosive weapons use, which caused devastation both for buildings, infrastructure, hospital. And we have also seen violations of personal integrity, large number of executions, torture and ill treatment, sexual and gender-based crime, as well as violence against children. Nick Schifrin: You said that there are signs of sexual and gender-based crime on civilians aged 4 to 82 years old. It's hard to believe that.But have you found that sexual assault, sexual violence is a deliberate act of control employed by the Russians? Erik Møse: And we have so far noted that some Russians acted in this way, based on the investigations of our investigators, that there were rapes and even personally being forced to witness rapes who were family members. Nick Schifrin: Let's talk about some of the examples of torture in prisons. I have talked to some of these people in Kharkiv.What conditions were Ukrainian prisoners held inside occupied territory? Erik Møse: There were such ill treatment, partly in Ukraine and partly in Russia after having been transferred to Russia.And, according to our investigations, they were kept for weeks in prisons and beaten. There were mocked execution, forced nudity. There were visible signs of executions when you examine the bodies. Nick Schifrin: Ukraine has consistently insisted that the best way to hold Russia accountable is to create a new tribunal to pursue the crime of aggression, specifically to target senior Russian officials.The prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, said that to me on this show last week.Andriy Kostin, Prosecutor General of Ukraine: The crime of aggression is the mother of all of other war crimes. Without crime of aggression committed, there could be no other war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide acts. Nick Schifrin: Is the crime of aggression the best way to find justice? Erik Møse: This option is one of several possibilities? It is amongst those who are discussing.But there are quite a few points of accountability that has to be taken into account, both at the national level. You could have ordinary courts or special courts at the national level, or you can have different kinds of international courts, including the one you just mentioned. Nick Schifrin: Ukraine's prosecutor general also said they have documented some 30,000 cases of war crimes since the beginning of the war.Do you have any sense of that — if that number is in the vicinity of the scale of what we're looking at today in Ukraine? Erik Møse: It is clear that the number of atrocities, or at least alleged atrocity, is vast in the country.This illustrates, in a way, the challenges of our mandate. We will have to look into the overall picture of what happened in Ukraine, try to single out the main patterns, and come up with a solid conclusion in our report in March next year. It's a huge task. Nick Schifrin: Erik Møse, thank you very much. Erik Møse: Thank you. Listen to this Segment Watch Watch the Full Episode PBS NewsHour from Sep 28, 2022 By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin is PBS NewsHour’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent. He leads NewsHour’s daily foreign coverage, including multiple trips to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion, and has created weeklong series for the NewsHour from nearly a dozen countries. The PBS NewsHour series “Inside Putin’s Russia” won a 2017 Peabody Award and the National Press Club’s Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence. In 2020 Schifrin received the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Media Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs. He was a member of the NewsHour teams awarded a 2021 Peabody for coverage of COVID-19, and a 2023 duPont Columbia Award for coverage of Afghanistan and Ukraine. Prior to PBS NewsHour, Schifrin was Al Jazeera America's Middle East correspondent. He led the channel’s coverage of the 2014 war in Gaza; reported on the Syrian war from Syria's Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders; and covered the annexation of Crimea. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his Gaza coverage and a National Headliners Award for his Ukraine coverage. From 2008-2012, Schifrin served as the ABC News correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2011 he was one of the first journalists to arrive in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after Osama bin Laden’s death and delivered one of the year’s biggest exclusives: the first video from inside bin Laden’s compound. His reporting helped ABC News win an Edward R. Murrow award for its bin Laden coverage. Schifrin is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Overseas Press Club Foundation. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a Master of International Public Policy degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). @nickschifrin By — Zeba Warsi Zeba Warsi Zeba Warsi is a foreign affairs producer, based in Washington DC. She's a Columbia Journalism School graduate with an M.A. in Political journalism. She was one of the leading members of the NewsHour team that won the 2024 Peabody award for News for our coverage of the war in Gaza and Israel. @Zebaism