Ukraine's First Lady demands global response to alleged sexual crimes committed during war

Ukraine's First Lady Olena Zelenska urged for a collective “global response” to deter the crimes related to sexual violence as a weapon of war widely used against women during the Russia-Ukraine war. Speaking at the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative conference in London, Zelenska said that the Kyiv prosecutors were investigating more than 100 alleged rape crimes committed by invading Russian soldiers. Rape is the “most cruel and animalistic way for someone to prove their violence over you. This is another weapon in their brutal arsenal," she noted at the conference. 

A UN envoy notified, that during the ongoing military intervention in Ukraine, the Russian armed forces have been using rape and sexual violence as part of a “military strategy” to humiliate the enemy and as a part of an intimidation tactic. During the offensive, women have been gang-raped, men castrated, children sexually abused, and some forced to parade naked in the streets as a part of the tactic of the war, the UN Commission said in a report ahead of the major international conference for preventing sexual violence during the conflict in London. “Victims range from four to over 80 years old,” UN investigation revealed. 

Data that was shared by the United Nations with a UN experts panel verified “more than a hundred cases” of rape or sexual assault against women in Ukraine committed by Russian soldiers since February. Ukraine's first lady, Zelenska told the conference in London that rapes under investigation were “just a small” fraction of the actual figure of such crimes being committed in the Ukraine conflict. Women who are survivors of sexual assault during the war refrain from being identified due to fear of reprisal and shame. Sexual crimes that involve rape, torture, and sequestering often go “underreported" during the military conflict. 

“The combination of mass displacement with the large pressure, results of conscripts and mercenaries and the brutality displayed against Ukrainian civilians has raised all red flags,” Sima Bahous, executive director for UN Women, said at a briefing, adding that she was “increasingly hearing of rape and sexual violence."

Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Kateryna Pavlichenko in June said that Kyiv's law enforcement officers received more than 50 complaints from women claiming to be the victims of sexual crimes committed in regions occupied by Russian soldiers. These cases mostly emerged in Kharkiv which was recaptured by the Ukrainian armed forces. One such case was detailed by a 16-year-old pregnant teenager from a small village in the southern region of Kherson Oblast. The girl, whose name was kept confidential to keep her identity hidden, detailed to the German newspaper Bild that her family was hidden in cellars throughout the Russian-occupied village of Krasnivka but was spotted by drunk soldiers who patrolled the streets.

Sharing the harrowing account of the sexual assault committed against her, she said, that the intoxicated uniformed Russian personnel followed her back into the shelter. They first interrogated her mother, three brothers, and sister about their ages. One of the soldiers then forced her into a separate room while her family remained in the kitchen, and armed with a machine gun he threatened to shoot her as he sexually assaulted her. "The soldier proceeded to grope her and choke her when she resisted, threatening to kill if she did not comply," the newspaper detailed. "The rape lasted half an hour," it quoted the victim.  The Russian occupier later forced the victim into an abandoned house nearby occupied by other Russian soldiers where she was asked to undress and raped again. She was dropped at her shelter basement accompanied by two soldiers who promised to "take care of the matter."

In northern Ukraine’s Chernihiv region, another Russian soldier from the 80th tank regiment—31-year-old Ruslan Kuliyev who served as lieutenant—repeatedly raped a girl, threatening to shoot her entire family, detailed a Chernihiv district court ruling filed in a report documented by United Nations-mandated investigation body. One Russian soldier forced a four-year-old girl to perform oral sex on him in the presence of her parents, as per the UN Commission. In a separate incident, a 22-year-old mother was raped in the presence of other armed forces personnel and her husband. Footage that was widely circulated showed a Russian soldier with blue surgical gloves filming himself castrating a Ukrainian prisoner. 

“Even in Bosnia we still get women stepping into support services saying they were raped 30 years ago. It has taken 30 years to feel confident to disclose this. We anticipate a similar situation may happen in Ukraine,” Jaime Nadal, a UN representative in Ukraine, said in a statement. 

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s office said Russia's war in Ukraine “is aimed at exterminating the Ukrainian people” and their troops' conscious use of sexual violence and rape intends “to spread a state of terror, [and] cause suffering and fear”. Women and men are dragged out to the streets and paraded, and in most cases, men are shot dead and then women are raped by the occupying forces afterward for instilling humiliation and fear. 

"Sometimes women are rounded up, held in basements, where sexual violence is inflicted upon them repeatedly, for days or even weeks," Dr. Ingrid Elliott, MBE and one of the UK’s Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict experts said.

Credit: AP

Women 'systematically raped' by Russian troops: Zelenskyy

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian troops of carrying out “hundreds of rapes" in the occupied regions. One Russian soldier was arrested after he allegedly filmed himself sexually abusing a Ukrainian child. Of the 25 women, some aged as young as 14, who were “systematically raped” by Russian troops in the town of Bucha, nine are now pregnant, Ukraine’s ombudsman for human rights, Lyudmyla Denisova, said in a statement. “Russian soldiers told them they would rape them to the point where they wouldn’t want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children,” the ombudsman for human rights said.  “When you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it’s clearly a military strategy,” Pramila Patten, UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, said in an interview. 

Ukraine's first lady on Monday demanded a global response, saying that due to the war, the "opportunities for the occupiers widened to humiliating Ukrainians and unfortunately, sexual violence and sexual crimes are within their arsenal." It was claimed last week by an international criminal lawyer assisting Kyiv’s war crimes investigations in an agency interview that Russian commanders in several instances may have been aware of sexual violence committed by their military personnel in Ukraine. They were, in fact, "encouraging it or even ordering it,” the lawyer stressed.  

(With agencies' input)