On Human Rights Day, December 10, the head of the Ukrainian state published a post comparing Putin's regime to Assad's rule in Syria and urged the world to unite in opposing such regimes.
"This year's Human Rights Day is accompanied by horrifying photographs of Syrian prisons and torture chambers, which were established following Assad's escape. People were humiliated there for many years—men and women. They were beaten, tortured, raped. Thousands and thousands of people passed through this factory of violence.
Assad's regime relied solely on violence for decades. And this is the nature of all regimes that Putin supports. We have seen the same prisons, torture chambers, unimaginable violence, humiliation, beatings, torture, rape, and other crimes on our territory in every settlement occupied by Russian invaders.
Russia is a prison state that can only retain foreign, stolen land through the prisons and torture chambers it establishes there.
From the beginning of the Russian occupation, repression and torture have always followed in the wake of their tanks. We first saw this on our land in Crimea in 2014, when Russian occupation led to the repression of the indigenous people, Ukraine's largest Muslim community—the Crimean Tatars—as well as journalists and political activists. Russia then continued its horrifying violations of human rights in the occupied Donbas, including the notorious "Isolation" prison.
Since February 2022, Russia has spread these practices to all other occupied territories. The atrocities have escalated in scale and cruelty.
This is why we Ukrainians are so moved when we see Syrians emerging from Assad's prisons and torture chambers.
Assad and Putin are not simply vassal and suzerain. They are accomplices in violence. Dictators like Assad cannot survive without dictators like Putin. And Putin will attempt to take revenge for Assad's fall.
That is why we need unity and strength to oppose regimes that sow nothing but humiliation and leave behind only suffering, pain, and destruction. By helping Ukraine fight against Russian dictatorship, the international community helps many other regions of the world restore security and achieve protection from violence.
For the horrific atrocities and violations of human rights, there must be punishment. In truth, only Putin and Assad deserve to be in prison—not the innocent people whom they have imprisoned for years."
