Russia has formally withdrawn from the council of Europe’s Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, bringing an end to the European body’s mandate to independently monitor conditions in Russian prisons, police stations and other places of detention.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 withdrawal of the Russian Federation marks the end of the CPT’s monitoring mandate in the country. 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 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. The allegations concerned detention facilities both in occupied Ukrainian territories and inside Russia.However, the CPT said it had been unable to visit Russia to examine the allegations because of the Russian authorities’ lack of cooperation. It contrasted this with Ukraine, which continues to allow the committee access to any place of detention on its territory and supports the automatic publication of its reports.
Russia blocked publication of most inspection reports
During its membership, the CPT carried out 30 visits to Russia between 1998 and 2021, inspecting more than 450 places of detention. 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.Only four reports were approved for publication. The unpublished findings include those from periodic and ad hoc visits, among them 10 inspections in Chechnya and the North Caucasus between 2000 and 2017. Russia can still authorise their publication.The CPT’s monitoring covers prisons, police stations, immigration detention centres, juvenile detention facilities, psychiatric hospitals and social care homes. Its delegations have the right to enter places of detention without restriction, interview detainees in private and communicate with anyone who may provide relevant information.The committee sends governments confidential reports setting out its findings and recommendations after each visit. The system is intended to prevent torture and ill-treatment through independent inspections and dialogue with national authorities, rather than to investigate or prosecute individual cases.Mitchell said independent monitoring remained a fundamental safeguard against abuse of people deprived of their liberty.The CPT will continue its work across the Council of Europe’s 46 member states. Russia left the Council of Europe in 2022, after the organisation moved to expel it following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
