Ukraine appoints three experts following invocation of the OSCE’s Moscow Mechanism

On 24 July 2025 and following consultation with Ukraine, 41 OSCE participating States invoked the Moscow Mechanism “on violations and abuses of human rights and violations of IHL, including possible cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity, related to the treatment of Ukrainian POWs by the Russian Federation”. More specifically, the tasks of the mission of experts will include those detailed below.*

Ukraine has now selected three people from the list of experts to be part of the mission.

The Moscow Mechanism provides the opportunity for participating States to send missions of experts to assist in the resolution of a particular question or problem relating to the human dimension, which entails the commitments made by participating States on human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Further information is available here.

In relation to Ukraine, the Moscow Mechanism was last invoked by 45 participating States following consultations with Ukraine in February 2024 to “address arbitrary deprivation of liberty of Ukrainian civilians by the Russian Federation”.

Any information relevant to the work of the Moscow Mechanism can be sent to the following email address ideally by 3 September 2025: moscowmechanism2025@odihr.pl. This will be forwarded in confidence to the expert mission.

The 41 countries that have invoked the Moscow Mechanism on this occasion are: Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

*To “build upon previous findings, and: [t]o establish the facts and circumstances surrounding possible contraventions of relevant OSCE commitments; violations and abuses of human rights; and violations of IHL, including possible cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity, related to the treatment of Ukrainian POWs by the Russian Federation; [t]o collect, consolidate, and analyze this information including to determine if there is a pattern of widespread and systematic torture, ill-treatment and execution of Ukrainian POWs and soldiers hors de combat and/or at detention facilities by the Russian Federation in the temporarily occupied territories and in Russia; and [t]o offer recommendations on relevant accountability mechanisms”.