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Russia plans to carry out a host of human rights abuses – including targeted killings, kidnappings, torture and forced disappearances – against ethnic minorities, gays and journalists after it invades Ukraine, according to a frantic letter penned to the UN Human Rights Commission.
US Ambassador to the UN Bathsheba Nell Crocker dashed off a one-page missive to UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet as an ‘early warning’ that the war in Eastern Europe would ‘create a human rights catastrophe.’
‘I would like to bring to your attention disturbing information recently obtained by the United States that indicates that human rights violations and abuses in the aftermath of further invasion are being planned,’ Crocker wrote in an undated letter that was first reported by the Washington Post.
Abuses have already been documented in Crimea, which was invaded and annexed in 2014 and other parts of Russia controlled Ukraine.
‘[We] have every reason to believe those concerns will multiply following a new military offensive,’ she wrote.
Russia has amassed 190,000 troops on the border and U.S. intelligence reports indicated that President Vladimir Putin intends to invade.