Women in occupied Ukraine face war rape

In the early days of the invasion of Ukraine, three Russian soldiers entered a house in one of the occupied areas near Kiev. Lived two women and a minor. One of the soldiers raped one of the adult women in the garage, threatening to rape the girl if she resisted.

The events recurred days later, according to an investigation recently released by Ukrainian police that identified the alleged assailant as a 27-year-old soldier from the Buryat region in the Russian Far East.

Ukraine Today marks the Day of Women Under the Threat of Rape as a Weapon of War in Russian-occupied territories in the east and south of the country, where the occupying army roams freely and can repeat abuses similar to those that Kiev unleashed with the liberation of its territories.

171 cases of sexual violence

On March 4, First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska announced that her country’s prosecutor’s office had registered a total of 171 cases of sexual violence by Russian soldiers in Ukraine. The vast majority of the victims are women, although there are also 39 men and 13 minors on the list.

As the wife of the Ukrainian president said, “we know about these cases because these people found the strength to speak out,” but there could have been many more victims of rape. “How many people are suffering without being able to count, especially in the occupied territories, we don’t know,” Zelenska said.

Forced to live with a rapist

Berislavsky district on the western bank of the Dnieper, dividing the southern Kherson region, was liberated by troops Ukraine November 14 last year, when the Russians were forced to withdraw to the other side of the river. Another of the cases investigated by the Ukrainian authorities occurred in Beryslav.

According to an official Ukrainian investigation, since the occupation of Kherson in March 2022, the Russian command of the district used the houses and property of residents of the Beryslavsky district at its own discretion, whose neighbors they terrorized with frequent raids.

During one of them, a Russian serviceman threatened to kill the son of the mistress of the house and raped her, brandishing a knife. The torment of the woman did not end there. According to an investigation by Ukrainian intelligence agencies in February, the attacker chose to stay at her home.

Justice for the Victims

Return of the troops Ukraine territories such as the western half of Kherson, separated by the Dnieper, cease the threat of sexual violence by troops Russiabut this does not imply that justice has been done.

In the vast majority of cases, occupying soldiers retreat to other areas they control, making it impossible for them to be arrested and convicted, even if they have been identified by the Ukrainian authorities.

First trial for war rape

Last June, the trial began in Kiev of 32-year-old Russian serviceman Mikhail Romanov, who is being tried “in absentia” on charges of murdering a man and repeatedly raping his wife during the Russian occupation of Brovarsky. March last year.

In order for the final sentence to Romanov to be carried out one fine day, the authorities Ukraine They are working to mobilize their international partners to establish international judicial mechanisms that bring war crimes to justice and redress their convictions.

Thoughtful strategy?

It is not easy to determine whether the rape and other forms of sexual assault by the Russian occupiers against Ukrainian women, documented by Kiev, are a deliberate strategy or the result of absolute and discretionary control exercised by the invading forces in the territories they have occupied.

Authorities Ukraine they are convinced they are part of Moscow’s military regulations, and some witnesses to these atrocities say that Russian commanders allow their soldiers to rape women as a reward for their efforts in battle.

Irina Didenko is a Ukrainian prosecutor who investigates cases of sexual violence as a weapon of war. “Ground troops arrive, and on the second or third day violations begin,” he says of the behavior of the Russian occupation forces in the territories they enter.

(As reported by EFE)

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