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UNITED NATIONS — <\/span>The United Nations estimates that more than 16,000 civilians detained<\/a> by Russia during its war in Ukraine<\/a> are still being \u201cdeprived of their liberty,\u201d many held incommunicado and on grounds that don’t comply with international law.<\/p>\n \u201cWidespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment” of both Ukrainian civilian detainees and prisoners of war by Russia are continuing, including sexual violence<\/a>, said Claudia Fuentes Julio, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for human rights.<\/p>\n She spoke at an informal meeting of the U.N. Security Council called by Latvia and the United Kingdom on Monday to spotlight the plight of civilians and soldiers taken during the war that Russia launched with a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022. The council, which counts Russia as a permanent member, heard the accounts as both Russia and Ukraine have escalated attacks<\/a> in the four-year conflict.<\/p>\n Since the invasion, Julio said, U.N. human rights staff have interviewed 910 Ukrainian prisoners of war and 403 civilian detainees following their release. The U.N. has not been able to visit detention facilities in Russia, and its estimated figure of those held does not break down how many are adults or children.<\/p>\n More than 95% of the Ukrainian prisoners of war<\/a> and 85% of the civilian detainees reported being tortured or ill-treated, often repeatedly, the U.N. official said. They also reported sexual attacks and inhumane conditions, including food deprivation and inadequate medical services.<\/p>\n The Geneva-based human rights office \u201chas documented the execution of 129 Ukrainian prisoners of war at the beginning of their captivity, and the deaths of 48 Ukrainian prisoners of war in custody, resulting from torture, denial of medical care, or other inhumane conditions of detention,\u201d Julio said.<\/p>\n The U.N. Security Council also heard emotionally wrenching accounts from Crimean Tatar human rights activist Leniie Umerova, who called herself a \u201cpolitical prisoner\u201d of the Russians for almost two years, and Khuan Leyva Garsiya, a Ukrainian soldier who was among the hundreds that held out for months at the Azovstal steel plant<\/a> in the besieged city of Mariupol<\/a> before turning themselves over<\/a> to the Russians in May 2022.<\/p>\n Garsiya, who was born in Mariupol to a Ukrainian mother and Cuban father, spent 1,183 days as a POW. He said he weighed 55 kilograms (120 pounds) when he was freed, pulling out a picture of his emaciated body to show the council.<\/p>\n He said he was tortured, beaten harder and humiliated more than other prisoners because the Russians suspected that he was a foreign mercenary due to his Cuban ancestry or an American spy because he went to college in the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cRussians were outraged that someone with a connection to Cuba, whom they consider an ally, would fight against their occupation army,\u201d said Garsiya, who is still in the Ukrainian military.<\/p>\n He said the Russians tried to break the prisoners mentally and force them to confess to falsified crimes through tortures including freezing, beatings, electrocution and sexual abuse, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo of my friends were beaten to death in detention centers in the Donetsk region,\u201d Garsiya said. \u201cTwo of my friends died because of the conditions they were put in in Russian prisons and were returned in plastic bags to the homeland.\u201d<\/p>\n