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Human Rights Council – 60th session
Interactive Dialogue with the Working Group on enforced disappearances or involuntary disappearances
Joint Statement on behalf of the group of countries
Tuesday, 16 September 2025
Madam President,
I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the group of countries and my own country, Ukraine.
We commend the Working Group for the work carried out, under circumstances of rising global challenges related to enforced disappearances.
Since 2014, and particularly after February 2022, over 70,000 people, including 20.000 children, have been registered as missing in Ukraine's Unified Register of Missing Persons in Special Circumstances. This alarming figure highlights the gravity of Russia's aggression.
Russia’s occupying forces are increasingly and systematically abducting individuals, arbitrarily detain them incommunicado, and subject them to physical and psychological torture and ill-treatment.
We strongly condemn the reportedly systematic use of enforced disappearances by Russia in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and its refusal to engage with the Working Group, provide information on Ukrainian POWs, civilian detainees and deported children, in violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law.
In this regard, we call on the Working Group to:
- Continue its active monitoring of the situation in Ukraine, including through urgent actions and thematic reporting;
- Urge the Russian Federation to grant access to all international monitoring missions in all temporarily occupied territories;
- Support Ukraine’s efforts to document these crimes and ensure accountability at both the national and international levels.
We count on the continued support of the Working Group and the entire international community in our fight for justice and safe return of all Ukrainians who have been forcibly disappeared and in particular the children.
Thank you.