UKRAINE, Nov. 2 – On Nov. 1, Russia officially withrdrew from the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), after been a party since 1998, Council of Europe reported.

Russian authorities had already notified the Council of Europe on leaving on Oct. 30, 2025, but as of Article 22 of the ECPT, the withdrawal takes effect only one year later after the notification.

The ECPT is a Council of Europe treaty adopted in 1987, that allows independent experts to inspect prisons and other places of detention to monitor how people are treated, preventing torture or ill-treatment.

According to the Council of Europe, in the 1998 – 2021 period ECPT representatives conducted 30 visits to Russia and inspected more than 450 detention facilities. However, Russia refused to authorize the publication of most inspection reports, allowing only four to be made public.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the ECPT has received numerous reports of torture and ill-treatment in Russian detention facilities, both in Russia and in the occupied territories of Ukraine. But still, Russian authorities have refused to cooperate.

“The withdrawal of the Russian Federation marks the end of the CPT’s monitoring mandate in the country. It also marks the end of any independent monitoring of places of deprivation of liberty inside the Russian Federation.”, Alan Mitchell, President of the CPT said.

Russia has long used torture against Ukrainian civilians in occupied territories. A September 2025 UN report found that 92% of 215 released civilian detainees interviewed reported torture or ill-treatment in Russian detention facilities, including beatings, electric shocks, and sexual violence. 

Torture chamber at the police department in Izium, Kharkiv Oblast. February 2023 / Photo: Denys Glushko, Gwara Media

Dmytro Lubinets, Ukrainian Ombudsman, has also repeatedly reported on Russian torture chambers in occupied territories, where civilians are detained and abused for their pro-Ukrainian views or accused of any kind of resistance to occupation.

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