File photo: Russia formally leaves anti-torture convention amid allegations of abuse in detention
During its membership, the CPT carried out 30 visits to Russia between 1998 and 2021, inspecting more than 450 places of detention. Because of the Russian authorities’ lack of cooperation, however, the CPT said it had been unable to visit Russia to examine the allegations.
Mitchell said independent monitoring remained a fundamental safeguard against abuse of people deprived of their liberty. But Russia was the only party to the convention with a stated policy of refusing to authorise the publication of the committee’s visit reports and government responses.
The withdrawal took effect on November 1, a year after Moscow notified the Council of Europe of its decision to denounce the convention on October 30, 2025. Russia had been party to the treaty since 1998. The committee said it had received numerous accounts of alleged torture and ill-treatment by Russian officials since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
It also marks the end of any independent monitoring of places of deprivation of liberty inside the Russian Federation,” Alan Mitchell, president of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), said in a statement. “The withdrawal of the Russian Federation marks the end of the CPT’s monitoring mandate in the country. The allegations concerned detention facilities both in occupied Ukrainian territories and inside Russia.