RT | October 17, 2026

The UN should resist pressure from Kiev’s Western backers and finally address the issue of widespread abuse of captured Russian servicemen in Ukrainian secret prisons, Russian Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik has said.

During a conversation with the chairman of the UN Committee Against Torture Claude Heller on Thursday, Miroshnik said that Moscow is aware of a whole network of such detention facilities, operating in Ukraine’s Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Sumy Regions as well as in the country’s capital, Kiev.

The Russian servicemen are “going through hell” in so-called “transit prisons,” which are set up at deployment points of Ukrainian military units and nationalist battalions, he said.

“The thugs, who hide their faces behind masks… and address each other only by their call signs, subject the captured Russian troops to inhuman abuse. Waterboarding, electrocuting, baiting with dogs and amputations performed without anesthesia are just a few examples of the techniques systematically employed by the Ukrainian tormentors,” the envoy, who is charged with documenting Kiev’s war crimes, stressed.

According to Miroshnik, captured troops are usually sent to those facilities in the early stages of their imprisonment, where they are held in cages, pits, and stone dungeons.

The Kiev government does not allow ombudsmen and human rights activists into those “torture chambers,” but the Russian authorities have gathered hundreds of accounts of survivors detailing what has been happening there, he said.

“This information had been passed on to the UN Secretariat on more than one occasion,” but no action followed, Miroshnik added.

By ignoring the existence of the secret prisons and systematic torture of Russian troops, the global body “encourages the spread of such criminal practices and disregard for the relevant UN Convention,” he added.

“Many experts are aware of this disgraceful phenomenon, yet there is a lack of political will to overcome the pressure from the foreign accomplices to the conflict, who shield the Kiev regime from accountability and prevent a thorough investigation of its conduct,” the envoy said.

While turning a blind eye to the torture of Russian troops, the UN published several reports accusing Russia of mistreating Ukrainian prisoners, based on accounts by POWs returned by Moscow to Kiev. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has labeled those accusations of abuse “disinformation.”

Last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the UN Secretariat was unable to properly perform its duties as most key positions are occupied by representatives of NATO countries.

The current team, led by [UN General-Secretary] Antonio Guterres, who is a Portuguese national, “promotes biased approaches and double standards, effectively serving the interests of a group of Western nations,” Lavrov insisted during a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Where heating is available, many cannot afford to adequately heat their homes. Only 32% of households reported being able to do so during the last heating season, a figure that dropped to just 1% in frontline regions.

Argentina’s delegation at the United Nations abstained from a resolution aimed at eradicating modern forms of colonialism, siding with the Trump administration and undercutting President Javier Milei’s recent demands over the British-occupied Malvinas Islands.

---

The vote took place in the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly. The measure, presented by the Russian Federation, sought to ratify and reinforce the goals of Resolution 1514, the landmark text approved in 1960 that declared colonialism incompatible with the UN Charter and fundamental human rights.

Argentina’s diplomatic delegation chose to stand aside rather than endorse the initiative. The move placed the Milei government in line with the position promoted by the White House, which pressed allied governments to abstain.

RELATED: Argentine President Milei Toughens Malvinas Claim at UNGA

The resolution passed anyway. Delegates recorded 85 votes in favor, 49 against and 23 abstentions, sending the text to the full General Assembly for consideration.

The alignment extended beyond Buenos Aires and Washington. Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru and Paraguay joined the abstention, a bloc of right-leaning regional governments that followed the U.S. lead.

On the other side, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and India voted in favor. Their support reaffirmed the global backing for territorial integrity and decolonization processes, and set up a sharp divide within Latin America itself.

The Russian draft went further than the 1960 declaration. It extended the concept of colonialism to cover unilateral coercive measures and the economic and financial sanctions promoted by Washington around the world, a provision that made the vote a direct test of alignment.

The UN General Assembly’s Fourth Committee approved the draft resolution “Addressing contemporary forms of colonialism” by 85 votes in favour, 49 against, with 23 abstentions. Sponsored by Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Belarus, Palestine and others, it recognizes colonialism in… pic.twitter.com/MqgQfoMhME

— Digital Debate (@digdebate) October 16, 2026

Malvinas Contradiction Deepens

The abstention collides with the rhetoric Milei has used on Malvinas, the archipelago occupied by Britain since 1833. His government has campaigned publicly for the defense of sovereignty and demanded sanctions against oil companies operating on that Argentine soil.

The contrast sharpened in September, when the Argentine President addressed the General Assembly. There he read extended passages demanding the eradication of colonialism and stated plainly that the principle of self-determination “exists to liberate colonized peoples, not to enshrine situations derived from colonization.”

Those words sit uneasily with the vote his own diplomats just cast, or chose not to cast. The abstention, in effect, withheld support from a document that echoes the very argument Milei delivered from the rostrum.

The domestic reaction was immediate. Carlos Bianco, the government minister for Buenos Aires province, called the abstention an irresponsible act against a historic national cause. “The Malvinas question deserves a diplomacy that does not kneel. Abstaining in the face of colonialism is not just an embarrassment, it constitutes an act of irresponsibility. The Malvinas question must once again be defined by Argentines. And it will be,” Bianco wrote on social media.

The episode exposes a tension running through the Milei administration’s foreign policy. It has embraced Washington as its principal ally while maintaining, at least in public speeches, a sovereignty claim that Washington’s abstention strategy directly undercuts.

Milei dice que quiere recuperar Malvinas. En la ONU, la Argentina se abstuvo de votar contra el colonialismo.
Hace dos semanas, esa misma delegación decía que Malvinas es una situación colonial.
Sobran las contradicciones. No tienen política exterior propia y desprecian al país… pic.twitter.com/I5cYaXCbvp

— Francisco Cafiero (@FranCafiero) October 16, 2026

Text reads: “Milei says he wants to take back Malvinas. At the UN, Argentina abstained from voting against colonialism. Two weeks ago, that same delegation said that Malvinas are a colonial situation. The contradictions abound. They have no foreign policy of their own and despise the country they govern.”

Argentina’s historic position on Malvinas has long drawn broad support across Latin America and the developing world, precisely the coalition that voted in favor of the resolution Buenos Aires declined to endorse.

The measure now moves to the plenary, where the same fault lines are likely to reappear. What Argentina does there will reveal whether the abstention was an isolated calculation or a settled posture. For now, the vote leaves a record that is hard to reconcile: a government that speaks of liberating colonized peoples, yet declines to vote for a resolution doing exactly that.

Efforts to raise hundreds of billions of dollars to preserve the world's oceans, forests, rivers, lakes and other parts of the natural world have fallen short ahead of a key U.N. summit on biodiversity.