The Third Committee of the UN General Assembly adopted an updated resolution entitled “The human rights situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, including the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.” As informs Permanent representation of Ukraine at the UN, this document became one of the largest in terms of text in the history of the General Assembly.
For the first time in a resolution, the UN General Assembly directly called Russia’s actions in Ukraine a “war of aggression against Ukraine”.
“It is already almost 14 pages long and the text will not change significantly. Because, in principle, everything that could be written down among the most terrible crimes that Russia commits in the occupied territories is written there for the most part. But there are certain differences that are added, in principle, anyway, annually“, said the head of the Crimean Human Rights Group (HRG) Olga Skrypnyk.
This year’s text includes a number of key points that have not been covered before, in particular, the issue of prisoners of war. The resolution now reflects violations of the rights of prisoners of war: illegal detention, torture and other cruel forms of treatment. The document also condemns Russia’s violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Among the new provisions, Russia’s obligation to provide POWs with family contact, access to lawyers and compliance with other norms of international law is mentioned. The resolution also contains specific names of illegally detained persons, including Seyran Saliev, Oleg Prykhodko, and Osman Arifmemetov.
This resolution became an important step in increasing international pressure on Russia regarding human rights violations in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
