Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine

On 3 March 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) started debating the effect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on human rights. On 4 March, in resolution A/HRC/49/L.1, the UNHRC condemned the violations of human rights and international law caused by the full-scale Russian invasion, called for Russia to stop its violations in Ukraine, and for Russia to completely withdraw from internationally recognised Ukrainian territory to prevent further violations, and voted to establish an independent international commission of inquiry on Ukraine. The UNHRC passed the resolution with 32 states in favour, 13 absentions and 2 (Eritrea and Russia) against. The Russian representative on the UNHRC, Evgeny Ustinov, called the commission of inquiry "a mere waste of resources, which could better be used to help civilians in Ukraine". Human Rights Watch expressed its support for the UNHRC to create a commission of inquiry into violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Ukraine by all groups involved. ==Structure==

The commission of inquiry was initially set up, in March 2022, to include three human rights experts for one year, ==Aims==

The goal of the commission was to investigate all alleged violations and abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The commission was required to make recommendations based on its investigation, first in September 2022 to the 51st and 52nd sessions of the UNHRC and the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly. == Reports==

2022 On 18 October 2022, the Commission published its report on events between the end of February and March 2022 in the four regions of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy. The Commission found that Russian armed forces were responsible for the great majority of human rights and international humanitarian law violations, but that Ukrainian forces also violated international humanitarian law, notably in two incidents that qualified as war crimes. Evidence gathered by the Commission included: • site visits to 56 locations in Ukraine; • interviews with 595 people, including refugees in Estonia and Georgia; • site visits to places destroyed in the war, grave sites; and sites where Russians detained and tortured prisoners; and • documentary and physical evidence, including written records, photographs and videos, satellite images and weapon fragments. The Ukrainian government responded to inquiries from the commission; the Russian authorities refused to cooperate. 2024 The commission's 15 March 2024 report included documented cases of sexual violence and torture and Russian ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war. A September 2024 update by the chair of the commission presented evidence of torture, sexual violence, and aerial bombing of civilian infrastructure including critical energy infrastructure. 2025 In its March 2025 report, the commission said that it had found evidence for Russia having committed the crimes against humanity of torture and of enforced disappearances based on interviews with about 1800 victims and witnesses. Russian authorities had failed to respond to 31 "communications" by the commission, among which some communications requested information about Russian victims. The commission found that both Russian and Ukrainian forces had committed the war crime of killing wounded soldiers hors de combat by drones, and found some cases of Ukrainian authorities violating the human rights of suspected collaborators. In May 2025, the commission published a report in which it stated that Russian drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians in Kherson Oblast were systematic and consistent over ten months over a wide geographic area and intentionally directed at civilians. The commission inferred that the attacks were planned and organised and thus constitute the crime against humanity of murder, and possibly also the crime against humanity of forced population transfer. ==See also==