For the first time, Russian human rights activists visited Ukraine to investigate war crimes committed by the Russian army.

Russian human rights defenders visited Ukraine on their first mission since the onset of the full-scale invasion. Local residents shared information about potential war crimes, as reported by BBC.

The monitoring mission, which took place in January 2025, included representatives from the Human Rights Center "Memorial," such as Oleg Orlov, who was released from a Russian prison last summer as part of a large prisoner exchange, along with human rights activists Natalia Moroz and Vladimir Malikhin.

According to the representatives of "Memorial," they concluded from their trip that the Russian army in Ukraine employed the same tactics it had used during the wars in Chechnya and Syria, which they described as a "system of state terror."

Among the violations documented by the human rights defenders were indiscriminate strikes on civilian objects, abductions, torture, and executions.

The Kharkiv Human Rights Group assisted in organizing the trip. This was the first visit by Russian human rights defenders to Ukraine since February 2022. They shared their experiences at a press conference in Berlin.

The "Memorial" group managed to visit several regions in Ukraine, including areas that were previously under temporary Russian occupation.

Human rights defenders interacted with local residents (some of whom had undergone so-called "filtration") and former prisoners of war who had been held in Russia.

According to Morozova, some residents, even knowing Russian, deliberately communicated with the human rights defenders only in Ukrainian, though everyone was willing to speak. Orlov mentioned this.

He recounted how during the trip, the group spoke with a woman who claimed that her husband was abducted during the Russian occupation and killed after being tortured.

"I saw that it was difficult for her. But she spoke with us. When we parted, she said: I will never forgive this," Orlov shared.

Following the trip, the human rights defenders will prepare a report, and all information regarding the documented crimes will be passed on to the Ukrainian side.

Background. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that The Telegraph reported that the U.S. may reconsider criminal prosecution of Russia for war crimes in Ukraine.

Representatives of the United States declined to label Russia as an aggressor during the Core Group meeting – a coalition of countries preparing a special tribunal for Putin.