Execution of civilians killed in Butch: Women were raped before they were killed by Russian forces

Doctors who are conducting tests on troops at mass cemetery in northern Kiev say they have found evidence that some women were raped before being killed by Russian forces.

“We already have several cases allegedly raped these women before they were shot to death,” said Vladyslav Pirovskyi.

“We cannot give more details as my colleagues are still collecting the data and we still have hundreds of bodies to examine,” he said.

Pirovsky's team has examined about 15 troops a day, many of them disabled.

There are many heavily disfigured bodies and bodies that are simply impossible to identify,” he said.

There are times when there are no heads. ”

He said the bodies of some women they had examined showed signs that the victims were killed with automatic firearms, with over six bullet holes in the back.

Oleh Tkalenko, a senior prosecutor for the Kiev region, said details of the alleged rapes had been forwarded to his office, which is investigating circumstances such as the whereabouts and ages of the victims.

“Rapes are a very sensitive and sensitive issue,” said Tkalenko.

“Legal medicine doctors have a specific task of controlling female victims' genital organs and looking for rape signs”.

A foreign doctor working north of Kiev, who asked to remain anonymous, said some “troops are in such a bad condition that it is not easy to find signs of rape and sexual abuse. But we're collecting evidence of some cases of women we believe were raped before they were killed. ”

After withdrawing Russian troops from towns and suburbs around the capital, dozens of women have told police, media and human rights organisations about atrocities they say have suffered by Russian soldiers. Investigators have heard evidence of group rape, armed assaults and rapes committed in front of children.

Ukraine's human rights commissioner, Lyudmila Denisova, has officially documented cases of 25 women being held in a basement and systematically raped in Bucha, a town in northern Kiev, now synonymous with Russian war crimes. Authorities have accused Russian troops of using rape as a war instrument, writes The Guardian, translates Periscopi.

Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said last week that hundreds of women were raped by Russian soldiers. Ukrainian authorities have refused to provide precise figures or details about where the rapes or ages of the victims occurred.

Russia has repeatedly denied that it has targeted civilians during the war, even though evidence for otherwise has increased.

Tkalenko said women were reluctant to submit reports to police on sexual violence because they believed the authors would not be caught. Instead, they contacted psychologists and doctors for help.

Much of the evidence gathered by Ukrainian prosecutors will soon be forwarded to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has launched an investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

A volunteer who traveled north of Kiev to help evacuate the inhabitants said that he met three naked women who left their homes and basements. One was badly beaten and taken in an ambulance, they declared.

What usually happens is that rape victims initially want to tell their story, but then leave and only a few months later come back to speak”, he said. /The Guardian/Periscope.