Wartime rape, threat to women in Ukraine

In the first days of the invasion, three Russian soldiers entered a house in one of the occupied areas around Kyiv. Two women and a minor lived there. One of the soldiers raped one of the adult women in the garage, threatening to rape the girl as well if she resisted.

The events happened again a few days later, according to an investigation recently released by Ukrainian police, who identified the alleged attacker as a 27-year-old soldier from the Buryatia region, in the Far East of the Russian Federation.

Ukraine is celebrating today Women’s Day under the threat of using rape as a weapon of war in the territories occupied by Russian forces in the east and south of the country, where the invading army roams freely and could repeat abuses like those that Kiev revealed with the liberation of their territories.

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

As the wife of the Ukrainian president said, “we know about these cases because these people found the strength to speak”, but the number of rape victims could be much higher. “We don’t know how many people are suffering without being able to count it, especially in the occupied territories,” said Zelenska.

Forced to live with a rapist
He Berislavski district, iOn the west bank of the Dnieper River, which divides the southern Kherson region, it was liberated by Ukrainian troops on November 14, when the Russians were forced to retreat to the other side of the river. Another of the cases investigated by the Ukrainian authorities took place in Berislav.

Since the occupation of Kherson in March 2022, the Russian unit in command of the district has used the homes and properties of residents of Berislavsky district at will, terrorizing their neighbors with frequent raids, according to an official Ukrainian investigation.

During one of them, a Russian soldier threatened to kill the son of the owner of the house and sexually assaulted her while brandishing a knife. The torment for the woman did not end there. Her attacker chose to stay at her home, according to a Ukrainian intelligence investigation revealed in February.

Justice for the victims
The return of Ukrainian troops to territories such as the western half of Kherson separated by the Dnieper River ends the threat of sexual violence by Russian troops, but does not mean that justice will be served.

In the vast majority of cases, occupying soldiers retreat to other areas they control, making their arrest and conviction impossible even if identified by Ukrainian authorities.

In June last year, the process started in Kyiv Russian soldier Mikhail Romanov32, who is on trial in absenceaccused of murdering a man and repeatedly raping his wife during the Russian occupation of Brovarski, near Kiev, last March.

In order for Romanov’s eventual conviction to be implemented one day, the Ukrainian authorities are working to mobilize their international partners to establish international justice mechanisms that allow those responsible for war crimes to be tried and pay the consequences of their sentences.

Thoughtful strategy?

It is not easy to determine whether the rapes and other types of sexual assaults by the Russian occupiers against Ukrainian women documented by Kyiv are a deliberate strategy or the result of absolute and discretionary control exercised by the invading troops in the territories they conquer.

Ukrainian authorities are convinced that they are part of Moscow’s war manual, and some witnesses to these crimes say that Russian commanders gave their soldiers permission to rape women as a reward for their efforts in battle.

Iryna Didenko is a Ukrainian prosecutor in charge of investigating sexual violence as a weapon of war. “The ground forces arrive and on the second or third day violations begin,” he says of the behavior of Russian occupation troops in the territories they enter.