Russia officially withdraws from European anti-torture convention
The Council of Europe announced the withdrawal on its official website, Rubryka reports.
Russian authorities first announced plans to leave the convention in 2025. In August that year, a draft resolution on withdrawal was submitted to the Russia parliament, the State Duma. In September, Russian president Vladimir Putin signed the law formalizing the decision.
Russia officially notified the Council of Europe of its decision on October 30, 2025. Under the convention's rules, withdrawal takes effect one year after the notification. Russia's withdrawal therefore became effective on November 1, 2026.
Russia had been a party to the convention since 1998. It was also the only member state that refused to allow publication of reports on inspections conducted by the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT).
Over the years, the committee carried out 30 visits to Russia and inspected more than 450 places of detention. Russian authorities allowed reports from only four of those visits to be published.
The Council of Europe also pointed to reports of human rights abuses by Russian forces since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The committee has received numerous accounts of alleged torture and ill-treatment of people in custody, both in temporarily occupied parts of Ukraine and inside Russia.
CPT President Alan Mitchell said:
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry had previously responded to Russia's decision. After Russia announced its plans to leave the convention, the ministry said the move "finally puts Russia among countries where human life and dignity are worth nothing."
The ministry also said that abandoning an international human rights monitoring mechanism showed that the Russian authorities wanted to avoid accountability for abuses.
As Rubryka has reported, Russia developed a system of torture for Ukrainian prisoners of war. Some personnel are even trained in different methods of torture.
Law enforcement officers have also exposed a group of Russian troops and collaborators who tortured Ukrainians in occupied Kupiansk. More than 100 people were tortured.
Ukraine's National Police also charged the former head of the Taganrog pretrial detention center, accusing him of personally ordering the torture of late Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna.
As of 2026, Ukrainian authorities had officially documented at least 345 cases of Russian troops executing Ukrainian prisoners of war since the start of the full-scale invasion.
At least 375 Ukrainians are also known to have died in Russian captivity.
The UN's annual report on conflict-related sexual violence also included Russian and Israeli forces on its blacklist for the first time. The report documented hundreds of verified cases of sexual violence against prisoners of war and civilians.
- Last
News by day
2 of November 2026
