Changes from resolution motion to resolution motion joint

RemovedB100308/2025

European Parliament resolution on the human cost of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the urgent need to end Russian aggression: the situation of illegally detained civilians and prisoners of war, and the continued bombing of civilians

(2025/2710(RSP))

The European Parliament,

Changed– having regard to its previous resolutions on theUkraine situationand inon Ukraine,Russia,

Removed– having regard to the Charter of the United Nations, in particular Article 2(4) thereof, and to UN General Assembly resolutions,

Added– having regard to the Hague Conventions, the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the European Convention on Human Rights, the UN Convention Against Torture, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the UN Convention on the rights of the child,

Removed– having regard to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols thereto, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,

Added– having regard to the Association Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Ukraine, of the other part, and to the accompanying Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area between the European Union and Ukraine, signed in 2014,

Removed– having regard to the Joint Statement of the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on the conclusion of the work of the Core Group on the Establishment of a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, adopted in Lviv, Ukraine, on 9 May 2025 (the Lviv Statement),

Added– having regard to all relevant resolutions by the UN General Assembly and Security Council, in particular UN General Assembly Resolution ES-11/7 adopted on 25 February 2025,

Removed– having regard to the Agreement signed on 25 June 2025 in Strasbourg between the President of Ukraine and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe on the establishment of a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine,

Added– having regard to the NATO Washington Summit Declaration of 10 July 2024 and the Hague Summit Declaration of 25 June 2025,

Removed– having regard to the reports and conclusions of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine,

Removed– having regard to the testimonies of former detained civilians and prisoners of war (POWs) who experienced torture and violence and witnessed their use, including executions, against fellow soldiers and fellow detainees,

Removed– having regard to credible reports concerning mercenaries drawn into a distant war by the Russian Federation, often through deception or coercion,

– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

Change 1

RemovedA. whereas the Russian Federation continues its illegal, unprovoked and unjustified full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine in violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations, accompanied by systematic violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes, including the unlawful detention of prisoners of war and civilians, all of which amount to crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide;

AddedA. whereas Russia has been waging a brutal, illegal, unprovoked and unjustified full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine since 24 February 2022;

RemovedB. whereas reports of enforced disappearances, systematic use of torture, inhumane treatment and extrajudicial executions of Ukrainian detainees held in Russian custody have been compiled by the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other international organisations;

AddedB. whereas Russia’s aggression against Ukraine did not begin in February 2022, but in 2014, with the illegal occupation and annexation of Crimea and parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, with severe humanitarian, economic and ecological consequences and resulting in regional instability; whereas Russia could stop the brutal and unjustified war of aggression at any time;

RemovedC. whereas the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine is investigating the execution of 268 Ukrainian POWs, including 208 who were executed on the battlefield and 59 in the ‘Olenivka’ colony;

AddedC. whereas the UN General Assembly, in its resolution of 2 March 2022, immediately qualified the Russian war against Ukraine as an act of aggression in violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, and, in its resolution of 14 November 2022, recognised the need to hold Russia accountable for its war of aggression and legally and financially responsible for its internationally wrongful acts, including by making reparation for the injuries and damage caused;

RemovedD. whereas, according to the UN, more than 95 % of Ukrainian POWs were tortured in Russia;

AddedD. whereas thus far in 2025, Russia has deployed over 20 000 drones against Ukraine, or around 3 500 per month, representing a 350 % increase compared to the 2024 monthly average; whereas Russia has killed over 1 050 civilians and injured 4 300 more, constituting clear evidence that it actively targets civilians, including ambulances and rescue personnel, in contrast to Ukraine’s defensive actions; whereas the recent attacks on Kyiv and Dnipro were the second deadliest and the deadliest attacks on these cities since the start of Russia’s invasion, starkly conflicting with Russia’s claims that it is interested in peace;

RemovedE. whereas 27-year-old Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna was captured by Russian forces in the summer of 2023 and was subsequently held captive; whereas in October 2024, her family received a letter from the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation stating that she had died; whereas on 24 April 2025, the Ukrainian authorities announced the repatriation of the 27-year-old’s body; whereas prior to the return of the body, multiple internal organs had been removed; whereas Roshchyna’s body showed numerous signs of torture and brutal treatment, including abrasions and bruises, a broken rib, neck injuries and possible signs of electrical burns to her feet; whereas Russia has a pattern of returning prisoners’ bodies with internal organs removed;

AddedE. whereas, as a reaction to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the EU has adopted 17 sanctions packages of unprecedented scope against Russia and continues to adopt sanctions against Russia with a view to definitively undermining its capacity to continue waging its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine; whereas the circumvention of sanctions, including through Russia’s shadow fleet and the incomplete implementation of sanctions, remain a major enabler of Russia’s war of aggression; whereas despite these and other sanctions, Russia continues to wage its war of aggression against Ukraine;

RemovedF. whereas thousands of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians remain in Russian captivity; whereas most of them have been denied access to medical care, communication with their families or independent humanitarian monitoring; whereas such treatment is aimed at breaking the spirit of those already disarmed and vulnerable; whereas torture is reportedly used to extract false confessions or testimonies intended to support even the most absurd narratives of Russian propaganda;

AddedF. whereas the US has again halted supplies of crucial military assistance to Ukraine;

RemovedG. whereas in early June 2025, following negotiations held in Istanbul, Ukraine and Russia reached a limited humanitarian agreement to exchange more than 1 000 POWs from both sides, specifically prioritising the release of wounded, seriously ill and young soldiers under 25 years of age;

AddedG. whereas Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has caused the largest forced displacement of civilians in Europe since the Second World War, with 10 million Ukrainians – mostly women and children – displaced, including 7 million who have found refuge abroad;

RemovedH. whereas several exchanges have taken place throughout June 2025, including the return of Ukrainian servicepeople suffering from dystrophy, ulcers, and cardiovascular and musculoskeletal conditions, as well as the handover of the remains of fallen soldiers;

AddedH. whereas Russia continues unabated to commit heinous war crimes against innocent civilians; whereas according to the Ukrainian authorities, approximately 16 000 Ukrainian civilians are known to be currently detained in Russia and the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories, although the real figures are likely to be significantly higher; whereas more than 70 000 Ukrainians – including civilians, children, and military personnel – are officially listed as missing;

RemovedI. whereas while these exchanges offer temporary humanitarian relief, they fall significantly short of the comprehensive obligations imposed on the Russian Federation by international humanitarian law;

AddedI. whereas the Russian authorities have systematically carried out enforced disappearances against large numbers of Ukrainian civilians, detaining individuals with no military affiliation on baseless and fabricated charges, with their fate and whereabouts remaining unknown, leaving their families in agonising uncertainty; whereas enforced disappearances by Russia are part of a widespread, systematic and coordinated assault on Ukraine’s civilian population;

RemovedJ. whereas Russia has not provided full lists or transparent accounting of the numbers, locations or conditions of Ukrainian detainees, nor has it granted unfettered access to independent humanitarian actors, such as the International Community of the Red Cross (ICRC), or contact with families; whereas the Department for Combating Crimes Committed in Armed Conflict of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine has identified 49 permanent detention sites for Ukrainian POWs on the territory of the Russian Federation and 16 sites in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, as well as 6 detention sites for Ukrainian civilians;

AddedJ. whereas, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at least 29 civilians have died in custody in Russian detention facilities, and 170 have been executed in areas under Russian control since February 2022;

RemovedK. whereas the Joint Statement adopted in Lviv on 9 May 2025 by the Foreign Ministers participating in the Core Group on the Establishment of the Special Tribunal reaffirms the critical importance of holding those who bear the responsibility for the crime of aggression accountable through a Tribunal that will operate in full compliance with international law and human rights standards;

AddedK. whereas throughout the process of enforced disappearances, the Russian authorities have consistently failed to inform the families of the fate or location of their loved ones; whereas multiple responses from various authorities have likewise failed to provide any meaningful information;

RemovedL. whereas more than 70 000 Ukrainians are listed as missing, and more than 16 000 Ukrainian civilians are being held in Russian prisons; whereas among the detained civilians are Ukrainian artists, including military orchestra musicians, who have been unlawfully classified by Russia as POWs; whereas this reflects a broader Russian strategy of targeting cultural figures and those serving Ukraine in symbolic or morale-boosting roles;

AddedL. whereas the Russian authorities have systematically employed torture and other forms of inhumane and degrading treatment against numerous illegally detained Ukrainian civilians; whereas the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has found evidence of Russia using rape and sexual violence as means of torture against both male and female detainees;

RemovedM. whereas the taking and detention of civilians as hostages is expressly prohibited under international humanitarian law; whereas this practice is being systematically applied by the Russian Federation against Ukrainian civilians in occupied territories and beyond;

AddedM. whereas Russia refuses to disclose the number of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) it currently holds; whereas the Russian authorities are blatantly failing to meet their obligations under the Geneva Conventions to allow international representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit prisoners and to transmit the relevant information to the ICRC, state authorities and the families of POWs;

RemovedN. whereas as of June 2025, Russia has illegally imprisoned 221 people in the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol on ethnic, religious and political grounds, including 133 Crimean Tatars;

AddedN. whereas Ukrainian POWs and civilian captives are subjected to torture, including starvation, beatings, various types of coercion, physical, sexual and psychological violence and denial of medical care and legal representation;

RemovedO. whereas over 5 600 Ukrainians have been documented as victims of torture in criminal proceedings;

AddedO. whereas Ukraine and international bodies have documented hundreds of executions of Ukrainian POWs by Russian forces since February 2022; whereas the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine is investigating the execution of 268 Ukrainian POWs (208 on the battlefield and 59 in the ‘Olenivka’ prison); whereas the increasing number of executions and available evidence suggests that these crimes are not isolated incidents but part of a systematic and deliberate policy, constituting serious violations of international law and human rights, and war crimes under the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute;

RemovedP. whereas since the beginning of 2025, the Russian army has launched nearly 27 700 guided aerial bombs, almost 11 200 Shahed drones, around 9 000 other types of attack drones and more than 700 missiles, including ballistic missiles;

AddedP. whereas Ukraine and Russia have conducted 65 prisoner exchanges since February 2022, resulting in the release of 5 757 people, including three large-scale exchanges in May 2025, with an additional 469 individuals released outside formal exchange mechanisms;

RemovedQ. whereas in June 2025, Russia used around 2 800 attack drones, nearly 3 000 guided aerial bombs and 140 missiles of various types against Ukraine;

AddedQ. whereas since the occupation and annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia has systematically targeted Crimean Tatars with politically motivated prosecutions, enforced disappearances, intimidation and harassment; whereas Crimean Tatar leaders, journalists, civil society activists and religious figures have faced disproportionate repression, including under the guise of anti-extremism and anti-terrorism charges; whereas these actions amount to violations of international human rights and humanitarian law and aim to erase the identity and presence of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people;

RemovedR. whereas Russian forces continue to carry out systematic drone attacks on Ukrainian cities bordering the front line, targeting civilians in the course of their daily activities, including by striking ambulances and rescue personnel; whereas the use of drones against clearly identifiable civilian targets, the dissemination of footage of these killings and the posting of explicit threats on social media demonstrate a coordinated state policy aimed at terrorising the population and forcing displacement;

AddedR. whereas Russia, while posturing as a defender of the Christian faith and values, has been conducting mass and systematic violations of religious rights in occupied Ukrainian territories, with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church banned outright, at least 47 Ukrainian religious leaders killed and more subjected to torture, and religious property willingly targeted and destroyed by Russian forces; whereas in parallel Russia weaponises the Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate as a tool to tyrannise and control religious communities and the Ukrainian population more broadly;

RemovedS. whereas the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates the number of civilians killed in Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion stands at 13 341 with a further 32 744 people injured;

AddedS. whereas the torture and killing of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna in Russian captivity highlights the grave and growing dangers faced by Ukrainian journalists held by Russian forces; whereas others, including Iryna Danylovych, Dmytro Khyliuk, Iryna Levchenko and Heorhiy Levchenko, remain in detention under life-threatening conditions;

RemovedT. whereas these numbers underestimate the true toll due to monitoring difficulties, especially on Ukrainian territories that are currently under Russia’s occupation;

AddedT. whereas according to the ‘Bring Kids Back UA’ initiative and the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), since February 2022 around at least 20 000 and possibly up to 35 000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported to Russia and Belarus or detained in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories, with only 1 366 returned and 637 confirmed dead; whereas the real figures are assumed to be much higher, as these transfers and deportations continue; whereas the HRL’s Ukraine Conflict Observatory has had its funding cut as of 1 July by the Trump administration, jeopardising the continuation of its work;

RemovedU. whereas in May 2025 alone at least 183 civilians were killed and 836 were injured in Ukraine as a result of Russia’s strikes;

AddedU. whereas the ICC has been conducting an investigation into the situation in Ukraine since 2 March 2022 and on 17 March 2023 issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, and Maria Lvova-Belova, so-called Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, for the war crime of unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children, followed up by additional arrest warrants against Russian officials issued on 24 June 2024; whereas the EU supports the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression that is being established in the framework of the Council of Europe;

Removed1. Expresses its strongest condemnation of the continued unlawful detention, enforced disappearance, systematic torture and inhumane treatment of Ukrainian POWs and civilians by the Russian Federation, in flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law;