British Ambassador to Ukraine warns 'Rape is a weapon of war, part of Russia's arsenal'

This article contains details and depictions of rape war crimes that may be distressing.

Russian troops have allegedly been committing rape crimes against Ukrainian women as an ‘instrument of war’ and in the recent week, “several cases” of violent sexual acts have emerged since Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ordered an all-out military invasion in Kyiv. While millions of civilians have taken shelter in the neighbouring EU nations to flee the war atrocities, the women and young girls in Ukrainian cities are being subjected to horrifying acts of sexual violence by the invading Russian soldiers, as is being claimed by the Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Ukrainian MP Maria Mezentseva.

The Ukrainian ministers have cited several incidents where Russian soldiers have raped and later killed the victims as the brutal armed conflict ensues on Ukrainian soil. Many such cases have not yet been revealed to the public by the rape victims, Maria Mezentseva said in a TV interview, referencing a singled out case in Brovary, an eastern suburb of Kyiv.

On Saturday, British Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons warned that Russian soldiers are committing rapes as ‘a weapon of war'. While the extent of use of such sexual crimes in war-torn Ukraine isn’t fully understood, “it’s already clear it is being used as a part of the arsenal,” Simmons warned.

“Women [are] raped in front of their kids, girls in front of their families, as a deliberate act of subjugation,” she said in a disturbing claim. “Rape is a war crime,” the British Ambassador to Ukraine said. 

As cases of rape by the Russian soldiers and increased sexual violence against women came to light recently, UK Foreign Office minister Vicky Ford told MPs during an urgent question in the Commons that the UK has involved international partners to strengthen the response to tackling sexual violence in conflict and “all options are on the table”. The Labour Party called for a tribunal on reports of sexual violence by Russian troops. 

“We are working through the ICC [International Criminal Court] because we believe that that is the best way to take people to court for war crimes. Setting up a new body could take many years and as I said, we have seen from the experience in the Democratic Republic of Congo that the ICC can be effective in holding people to account,” said Ford. 

Credit: Associated Press/Vadim Ghirda

UK 'horrified' by cases of rape by Russian armed forces: Foreign Office Minister 

The UK Foreign Office has emphasised that it now becomes increasingly “important” to gather all the evidence, adding that a new convention is needed or a new international agreement Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative to have the victims raped by invading soldiers to speak. The legal body will support survivors, document crimes, and prosecute perpetrator soldiers in coordination with local courts. The UK is “horrified” by cases of sexual violence and rape by Russian armed forces, said a British Foreign Office minister. “We have been clear that Russia’s barbaric acts must be investigated and those responsible be held to account,” she told MPs in Commons. 

“Sadly, rape in war is not new and before the war started in Ukraine, the foreign secretary committed the UK to do more to tackle sexual violence in conflict, including – but not limited to – its use as a method of warfare,” said UK Foreign Office minister.

UK will do “all we can to bring the perpetrators of war crimes, including sexual violence, to justice.”

A Ukrainian soldier looks at a damaged bridge in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv. Credit: Associated Press

Among the horrifying documented rape war crimes in Ukraine, as confirmed by Kherson resident Svetlana Zorina in televised accounts, a woman was brutally raped and killed by a Russian soldier. “Russian soldiers shot her husband dead before repeatedly raping her as her minor-aged young son sobbed,” the documented account revealed. Ukraine’s MP Maria Mezentseva in a televised interview confirmed that Russian soldiers have been raping and sexually assaulting women since the invasion. 

“There is one case which was very widely discussed recently because it’s been recorded and proceeded with (by) the prosecutor’s office, and we’re not going into details, but it’s quite a scary scene when a civilian was shot dead in his house in a small town next to Kyiv,” Mezentseva told Sky News. “His wife was — I’m sorry but I have to say it — raped several times in front of her underage child.” Public record because “justice has to prevail,” she added, describing the scenes of violence against Ukrainian women as “scary” and “horror striking.”

“There are many more victims rather than just this one case which has been made public by the prosecutor general,” said Ukraine MP Maria Mezentseva. “And of course, we are expecting many more of them, which will be public once victims will be ready to talk about that.”

Credit: Associated Press

In Ukraine’s embattled southern city of Mariupol, the most heavily bombarded region by the invading Russian troops, a woman who was brutally raped by the soldiers had died. Ukraine’s defence ministry announced the news of the woman’s death on Twitter, and the account was verified by the Polish journal niezalezna.pl. “This is not a horror movie. Rape, violence, murder - such is the meaning of Russian peace,” the Ukrainian defence ministry wrote in the post. 

Horrifying scenes from Mariupol, other cities 

Following Ukraine Defence Ministry’s updates on rape crimes against women, European Union Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson said that “scary scenes from Mariupol and other cities” make it obvious that Ukrainians “are suffering from trauma.” Delivering an address before the EU’s European Committee of the Regions, an advisory body comprising government officials from all 27 member states of the bloc, Johansson said that “Russian troops are systematically raping women, often in front of children.” She called atrocities, destruction, and crimes wreaked inside Ukraine as “biggest crisis since the Second World War.”

In 2008, the UN Security Council had outlined a warning in a resolution that women and girls “were particularly targeted by troops by the use of sexual violence in wars as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate [and] instill fear.”

A Kherson woman Svetlana Zorina who spoke in a televised interview with American broadcaster CNN, told journalist Nora Neus: "We are scared.” Narrating the rapes committed by the Russian troops during their fierce invasion, she said, “they already started to rape our women. There was information from people who I personally know, that a 17-year-old girl, it's happened to her and then they killed her.” "So we are terrified and scared but we are not going to give up,” she said. 

In an event organised by London's Chatham House think tank, Ukraine Foreign Minister Kuleba noted the atrocities faced by the civilians, particularly women, as he said, "When bombs fall on your cities, when soldiers rape women in the occupied cites.” Continuing further, he questioned international laws. “We have numerous cases of, unfortunately, when Russian soldiers rape women in Ukrainian cities, it's difficult, of course, to speak about the efficiency of international law.”

In a social media post earlier this week, Ukraine’s prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova stated that it was investigating the reports of rapes as for the first time a rape charge has been brought against a Russian soldier by a survivor. Although, the prosecutor general did not divulge other details or evidence gathered. She informed that Ukraine’s prosecutor general office last week, in coordination with the Ukrainian authorities, have identified Russian soldiers who killed a 33-year-old woman's husband on the morning of March 9 and invaded her home, despite the fact that a white sheet was hanging outside to indicate there were no military targets.

The two allegedly drunk soldiers gunned down the family’s dog and threatened to shoot the son. “I heard a single shot, the sounds of the gate opening, and then the sound of footsteps in the house,” the woman identified only as Natalya told the Times. Then I looked outside and I saw him on the ground by the gate. This younger guy pulled a gun to my head and said: ‘I shot your husband because he’s a Nazi.’” The soldiers later advanced on the woman, armed, asking if they shall "kill her or keep her alive?’” as they brutally raped her. 

The two soldiers were identified by the Ukrainian authorities, and a warrant was out for their arrest, said Venediktova in an update. “We will find every villain and make him answer to the fullest extent of the law,” she wrote on Facebook.

In response to the reports, Lesia Vasylenko, a Ukrainian MP took to her Twitter handle to deride Russian soldiers. “Two million people were raped in Germany by Russians during World War Two. Russia again is using rape as an instrument of war. This time in Ukraine. History repeats itself,” she said. 

Image: AP