Rape allegations against Russian soldiers in the Ukraine war

Created: 04/01/2022, 12:46 p.m

By: Marvin Ziegele

A woman and her baby cross the border from Ukraine into Poland.

In an interview, a Ukrainian woman described how she was said to have been raped by two Russian soldiers.

(FILE PHOTO) © ANGELOS TZORTZINIS/AFP

A woman alleges rape against Russian soldiers.

The case will now be investigated.

Kyiv – Numerous people experience traumatic fates in the Ukraine conflict*.

A woman from Ukraine* described in an interview that she was said to have been repeatedly raped by two Russian soldiers – while her son was crying in the next room.

"Natalya," the pseudonym the woman used in the London Times interview, described her experience.

Accordingly, she lived in a village near Kyiv.

Her husband went outside on the evening of the crime to check the front gate after hearing noises.

Just a few moments later, "Natalya" is said to have heard a shot.

Rape in the Ukraine war: "I shot your husband because he is a Nazi"

"I yelled, 'Where's my husband?' then I looked outside and saw him lying on the ground by the gate," she told the Times of London.

"This younger man put the gun to my head and said, 'I shot your husband because he's a Nazi.'"

The two Russian soldiers are said to have raped her several times while her son, who was in an adjoining room, cried.

After the alleged crime, "Natalya" is said to have fled with her son near Lviv in western Ukraine.

There, she says, her sister is said to have encouraged her to break the silence about the incident.

Now she wants to have recognized one of the two alleged perpetrators on social media.

Ukraine conflict: "Natalya" wants to break the silence of other women

"I could have stayed silent, but when we got to the police, my husband's sister made me speak up and there was no turning back," she said.

“I understand that many people who have been hurt remain silent out of fear.

Many people don't believe that such terrible things happen.

The case of "Natalya" is now to be the subject of an investigation.

This is the first official probe into allegations of sexual violence against Russian forces, announced by Ukraine's Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova on Facebook last week.

Russia* denies the allegations in Venediktova's post.

"It's a lie," Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's press secretary, told reporters last week, Interfax news agency reported to the New York Times.

Rape: War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

Rape and other forms of sexual violence, which have historically accompanied armed conflicts, may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the Times.

Russian forces and Moscow-backed armed groups have been accused of sexual violence in other conflicts, most recently against prisoners in eastern Ukraine.

Reports of rape and sexual violence began almost immediately after Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine began, Kateryna Busol, a Chatham House staffer and Ukrainian attorney, said, according to the New York Times.

"These reports are increasing," Busol said in a telephone interview from Regensburg, where she fled Kyiv in the days after the invasion.

(Marvin Ziegele)