Rapes, “part of Russia's arsenal” in the war in Ukraine

This account is one of several events recorded by officials, aid workers and human rights monitors, as Russian troops have withdrawn from the surrounding Ukrainian capital, Kiev, and other areas of state since they began their invasion on February 24th.

“It is impossible to know how many victims are”, Parliamentary Lawyer for the Ukraine, Lyudmyla Denisova told Radio Free Europe. This is because a lot of people have been brutally murdered... But it's another story when our wives, children and their parents are now telling us about the violence that has been exerted against them”.

Denisova added that some of the alleged rape victims claimed soldiers said such things as: “We will make sure that you don't want to be with any man anymore, so that you don't have children”.

“According to preliminary information, there have been many rapes, many”, said Ukrainian General Prosecutor Iryna Venedicova. “All cases will be investigated after our territory is freed”.

In a report published on April 3rd, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) organisation documented the first allegations of rape. A 31-year-old woman, who asked not to be identified from the village of Malaya Rohan, near the eastern town of Harkiwi, said Russian soldiers entered the night between March 13th and 14th in the basement of a local school that was sheltering women and children. She said a soldier took him and sent him to a classroom that was on the second floor of this school and under gun threat forced him to strip and have oral sex.

“all the time, he held the gun to my head or put it in my face”, she was quoted as saying. He shot two times in the ceiling and said he was giving me more blitz.

Then the soldier raped her twice, confessed this woman. He stabbed her in the face and neck and then let her go.

The next day, she and her family went to Harchiv, where she received help.

I'm lucky to be alive”, she said.

The same day, British Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons wrote on Twitter that rape is the <x0Harm of war”.

“although we do not yet know the full extent of its use [in the violence] in Ukraine, it is clear that it is part of Russia's” arsenal, Simmons wrote. “Gs raped in front of their children, girls in front of their families, as a deliberate act of submission”.

Russia has not specifically responded to charges of rape. Russian officials have denied that Russian forces in Ukraine have targeted civilians or committed war crimes, but have offered little evidence to support these denials.

Shortly after HRW's initial report, the researcher in Ukraine and this organisation, Yulia Gorbunova, told Radio Free Europe that it has investigated two more cases of sexual violence carried out by Russian troops in Bucharest and Brovar, located on the outskirts of Kiev.

“Collecting information for such cases may take a long time”, Gorbunova said on April 8th. “In some conflicts, it took months, maybe even years before the actual crime rate” was known.

In light of these initial reports, a host of similar stories of sexual violence ʹ and claims of other atrocities began to be documented as Russian forces began withdrawing from parts of Ukraine earlier this month.

Andriy Niybytov, head of the Kiev regional police, told Time Current about an alleged rape case in the village of Bohdanovka.

The woman went home with her young son and tried to hide” from Russian soldiers who had killed her husband, Nyebytov said, but two soldiers came to her house in the evening. They were drunk. And they raped him after they threatened to shoot his son”.

They left, but then turned three times, and each time raped this woman”, he said. “Finally, she managed to escape”

During a media conference on April 7th, Oleksandr Vilku, the head of the Ukrainian military administration in Kridj Rich, in the southern region of Herson, accused Russian forces of raping a 78-year-old woman.

Through a Facebook post on April 8th, the Ombudsman, Lyudmyla Denisova, reported on an alleged rape case for a 14-year-old girl. This girl, she said, was raped by five soldiers in Butka, adding that the victim has become pregnant. Denisova, also, reported that a woman in Butcha was tied to a table and had been forced to see how Russian soldiers raped her 11-year-old son and a 20-year-old woman in Irpin, near Kiev, also reportedly had been raped by three soldiers at the same time.

The brutality of this army of terrorists and executioners of the Russian Federation knows no limits to”, Denisova wrote, asking the United Nations to investigate alleged atrocities.

Psychologist Levchenko said the number of rape cases would likely be much higher than the number of reported cases so far.

It's not like women don't want to talk about this matter”, Levchenko said. “They cannot. The shock they suffered prevents them from forming thoughts... Such a person can often not even report exactly what happened”.

She added that new cases are being reported by Ukrainians who have fled to Poland, and these victims are now telling the aid workers.

Other victims, according to aid workers, do not want to speak out of fear of revenge as Russia's fight against Ukraine entered the second month.

There was a woman who said directly that she does not want us to tell anyone her history”, said Maryna Lehenka, vice president of the non-governmental European organisation against human trafficking, La Strada. “Because she's afraid they'll find her and kill her. That's what they told her.

In the interview on April 7th, psychologist and assistant worker Catherine Galyant, who has established a channel in the telegram where mental - health professionals can contact people in need, described three supposed group rapes, including groups of three to five Russian soldiers in Buka.

She said the victims told her the perpetrators had gone to residences or shelters that showed that women or children had been hiding in these buildings.

“Rape now is a war instrument”, Galyant said. “A way to show strength, terrorize people and break them psychologically and physically”.

Ukraine's General Prosecutor Venice told Credit Time that her office has created a task force to collect information concerning alleged cases of rape, so that this information is then sent to the International Criminal Court.

“They have opened a case against the Russian Federation”, she said. “Against the aggressor state. This enables us to use this data not only personally against individual soldiers. If we're able to identify soldiers, it would be great. But if we can't identify them, we can still use this information and evidence to confirm the crimes committed by the Russian Army on Ukraine's territory”.