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Rape Used In Ukraine as a Russian 'Military Strategy'

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Rape Used In Ukraine as a Russian 'Military Strategy'

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The world may be watching, but that doesn't mean it is truly paying attention.

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Paris (AFP) - Rape and sexual assault attributed to Moscow's forces in Ukraine are part of a Russian "military strategy" and a "deliberate tactic to dehumanise the victims", UN envoy Pramila Patten told AFP in an interview.

"All the indications are there," the UN special representative on sexual violence told AFP on Thursday, when asked if rape was being used as a weapon of war in Ukraine.

"When women are held for days and raped, when you start to rape little boys and men, when you see a series of genital mutilations, when you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it's clearly a military strategy," she said.

"And when the victims report what was said during the rapes, it is clearly a deliberate tactic to dehumanise the victims."

The United Nations has verified "more than a hundred cases" of rape or sexual assault since the beginning of the war, Patten said.

The first cases were reported just "three days after the invasion of Ukraine" on February 24, she added, referring to a UN report released in late September.

The report "confirmed crimes against humanity committed by the Russian forces, and according to gathered testimonies, the age of the victims of sexual violence ranges from four to 82 years old," Patten said.

The victims are mostly women and girls, but also men and boys, she added.

"There are many cases of sexual violence against children who are raped, tortured and kept hostage," she said.

But "reported cases are only the tip of the iceberg," she added.

"It's very difficult to have reliable statistics during an active conflict, and the numbers will never reflect reality, because sexual violence is a silent crime" that is largely underreported.

'World is watching'

Patten said her fight against sexual violence was "a battle against impunity".

"That's why I went to Ukraine (in May): to send a strong signal to the victims, to tell them that we stand with them and to ask them to break their silence," she said.

But it was "also to send a strong signal to the rapists. The world is watching them, and raping a woman or girl, man or boy, will not be without consequences".

Rape as a weapon of war has been reported in conflicts worldwide, from Bosnia to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But the war in Ukraine has marked a turning point in international attitudes, the UN envoy said.

"There is now political will to fight impunity, and there is consensus today on the fact that rapes are used as a military tactic, a terror tactic," Patten said.

"Is it because it is now happening in the heart of Europe? That might be it."

She said she hoped, however, that the focus on Ukraine would not detract from other conflicts.

"I find this attention to... sexual violence linked to conflicts to be very positive," she said, unlike in the past when the issue was viewed as "unavoidable", mere "collateral damage" or even a "cultural issue".

Patten said she was also concerned about the risk of human trafficking.

"The women, girls and children who have fled Ukraine are very, very vulnerable, and for predators, what is happening in that country is not a tragedy but an opportunity," she said.

"People trafficking is an invisible crime, but it's a major crisis."

More than seven million Ukrainians have fled the fighting into other European countries since the war started, the UN refugee agency says.

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Rape used in Ukraine as a Russian 'military strategy:' UN

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Paris (AFP) - Rape and sexual assault attributed to Moscow's forces in Ukraine are part of a Russian "military strategy" and a "deliberate tactic to dehumanise the victims", UN envoy Pramila Patten told AFP in an interview.

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Ukraine Has Accused Russian Soldiers of Using Rape as a Tool of War. These Two Women Say Justice Is Hard to Come By.

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Ukraine Has Accused Russian Soldiers of Using Rape as a Tool of War. These Two Women Say Justice Is Hard to Come By.

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In a small village Russian soldiers occupied as they tried and failed to take Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, at the beginning of the war, two women say they are living with the pain of multiple traumas: destruction, death and rape.

One of the women - who said her husband was murdered by Russian troops on the night of the rape - left her hometown in the Brovary District to save herself and her teenage son further pain.

The other woman has stayed and is seeking justice from Ukrainian authorities.

Since the Russian invasion, Ukrainian officials have noted multiple instances of sexual abuse of women, children and men by Russian forces who, they say, are using rape and other sexual offenses as weapons of war.

CNN spoke with the women from Brovary District about their harrowing experience and agreed not to share their real names - or those of their family members - to protect their privacy. They are just two of the hundreds of Ukrainians who have reported alleged war crimes.

"There have been 700 reports since the first of April," Lyudmila Denisova, the Ukrainian parliament's human rights ombudsman, said, including at least one case where a young boy was reportedly raped.

Denisova has the daunting task of gathering evidence of reported war crimes related to the Russian invasion. A hotline has also been organized to provide free psychological support for victims or witnesses of sexual assault, she said.

"It's very difficult. You know someone has to do it, for our fighters on the front lines, it's much more difficult for them. They are in danger every minute. This is my own front line."

The rape cases are investigated by a special prosecutor's office, Denisova said.

"From the details we have been given we are 100% sure war crimes have been committed," said Olexiy Bonuk, the head of the department within the prosecutor's office investigating the case.

The women CNN spoke with said their suffering has been compounded by local gossip about what happened to them and the stigma inflicted on rape survivors. But they're determined to fight.

The attack

The women were neighbors in a village in the Brovary District, about an hour's drive outside Kyiv.

Both women are married. Both are in their early 40s. And both say they were targeted by Russian soldiers.

"We are the youngest women in this village. And they wanted skinny women," said one of the survivors, who overheard the soldiers talking.

"What that son of a bitch did to me was horrible. He forced me to ..."

The woman, who CNN is calling Nika, trails off. Her eyes lower. "I can't talk about it. I'm ashamed and scared."

The Russians began engaging Ukrainian troops in Brovary District on March 1. Nika said she was first approached on March 9 while at home with her husband.

Russian soldiers and their commander came to their home and demanded she and her husband hand over their phones. The troops left after a Russian soldier fired a shot hitting her home and grazing their commander, she said.

Two of the younger Russian soldiers returned in the dead of night, Nika said. They separated her from her husband, snatched her by the hood of her coat and dragged her out of the house and down the street to a neighbor's home where another survivor, who CNN is calling Dasha, was asleep. Dasha's husband, daughter and mother, Valentina, were also sleeping in the home.

When the Russians arrived and knocked on the door, "They banged so hard it shook everything, even rattled the windows," Valentina said.

Dasha's husband went out to talk with the soldiers, she said, and Nika was outside listening to the men argue.

Moments later, Nika said she heard what cold-blooded murder sounds like.

"There was a short conversation. And then there was a sound, like bang! A shot like a firework," Nika said. "My body was shaking."

She then saw the Russian soldiers pushing Dasha's husband's body out of sight.

The soldiers then took her and Dasha down the street to a house vacated during the invasion, Nika said. She heard the soldiers calling each other by name: Danya and Oleg.

"While we were going there, Danya said, 'Guess what, Oleg? Look who we are going to f**k!'" Nika said, apologetic for quoting his curse words.

Even after trying to reason with him, Nika said, she was raped by Danya in the downstairs part of the home.

Danya told Nika he was 19 years old, she said.

"I told him I am 41, my younger son is the same age as you. I asked him if he had a girlfriend. He said, 'Yes. She is 17. But I didn't have sex with her.'"

Nika asked, "Why are doing this to me? He answered that he hadn't seen a woman in two weeks."

The anger rises in her voice as she recounts the conversation. "Can you believe that? It is crazy."

Escaping bullets and accusations

Nika and Dasha both survived the attacks. But another threat soon presented itself. The town was under fire during a fierce battle between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

Amid the fighting, the women escaped their captors, and said the soldiers were too scared to run after them for long.

But escaping their attackers meant running through an active battle zone.

"There were bullets flying around from the forest. I thought, 'Oh my God, someone will see me, and kill,'" Nika said.

At great peril, the women managed to make it back to their homes. Dasha had to face the horrors of not only what she just endured, but also the need to grieve the loss of her slain husband.

With the village remaining under Russian occupation, Dasha and Valentina tried to dig a grave, but the ground was too frozen. Gathering all her strength, Dasha went to a Russian commander to demand help burying her husband, Valentina said.

"She said, 'Your guys came at night and killed him. Help us bury him,'" Valentina said.

The Russian commander capitulated, she said, and soldiers helped bury Dasha's husband in the family's backyard. A proper burial, however, was out of the question while under occupation.

Making matters worse, gossip soon floated around the village. Neighbors began accusing the women of being collaborators and getting special favors for sex.

"I wasn't collaborating with them. I was afraid of them. It is crazy!" Dasha told CNN, exasperated. "Did they see it? Did they? They didn't. I can make accusations too. It doesn't make them true."

On being victimized twice - the rapes, then the rumors - Nika said, "God sees everything."

She intends to do whatever is needed to help prosecutors prove the assault.

"I want them (the soldiers) to be punished by a judge. They must decide what to do with them: shoot them, kill them, tear them apart. The bastards."

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Ukraine has accused Russian soldiers of using rape as a tool of war. These two women say justice is hard to come by | CNN

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In a small village Russian soldiers occupied as they tried and failed to take Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, at the beginning of the war, two women say they are living with the pain of multiple traumas: destruction, death and rape.

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Now is the time for reporters and journalists to be sharing with the rest of the world the brutality of what is occuring in the Ukraine under Russian occupation. The fact that Gen Z has such immediate access to apps like TikTok, where they are viewing soldiers’ posts while deployed in real-time, almost gives the occupation a distant and unreal feeling.
The mass amounts of sexual assaults happening right now in the Ukraine are not being discussed because we want to believe what is being described would never happen in this day and age, but the reality is right in front of us. Despite what Russian government officials are claiming, that it’s nothing more than “gossip and rumors” is astonishing in its lack of regard for the countless human lives being irreparably damaged.

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The author backs up information by speaking to the victims.  The claims the author is writing about becomes very real when you see the photos of the people in the story which included several of the victims and also in one of the photos is the conflict related sexual crimes investigator and there is also a photo of the prosecutor’s department investigator.
In all of the different areas,  Kyvi , Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kherson regions, the victims spoke about similar sexual violent crimes that were committed. The similarity of the horrendous sexual crimes and torture reinforces the realistic events and logic to these stories, because so many of these stories are overlapping.
Ukrainian officials are documenting crimes and Russian officials are denying everything.
The claims this author is making are realistic because the victims all have the same stories. However the sad thing is in actuality the numbers are much higher because many victims are afraid of the stigma and shame they feel by being sexual crimes victims  who were raped and tortured. The victims are also worried about victim blaming and “fraternizing with the enemy”.
This story is important and necessary to tell because the more the world hears about these horrendous sexual assault war crimes, the more hope people can have that something will be done and action can be taken to prevent this from continuing. It is also extremely relevant that the setting of this story was where some of the crimes occurred and that there were photos of some of the victims. This makes the harsh truth so real and by making these stories known, hopefully more people will get involved and take action to make a change.

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Throughout  the whole article the method of pathos is used by the chilling stories these women and men tell. Countless cases of sexual violence, abuse, and rape are mentioned which invokes the feeling of anger, disgust, and fear towards society.
These two examples that I chose are just an example of a few of the cases mentioned in this article. In the first image is from page 11 and starts off talking about how the rise of sexual violence is gaining in the war in Ukraine. Russian commanders knew about the multiple accounts of rape from the soldiers and even encouraged it in order to relieve some stress. Audiences can conclude from hearing this account that the soldiers are inhumane people who only care about themselves and lack decent for human lives. This invokes rage because of the way both men and women are being mistreated and used as a “ stress reliever” during a war that was started by them (the Russians). Another example from page 11 is  when a Russian commander told his soldiers to go inside of the house while he waited outside. One soldier said to beat one woman and to rape the other within the house. This again shows the feral tendencies that humans can have and how they can easily take advantage of others in drastic situations.
On page 9 statistics of how many women have been sexually assaulted and raped are shown. Statistics show that more than 22 of the 800 women and girls being consulted experienced sexual violence. Eight of the women were around the age of 18 or younger. Many of them mentioned that they didn't want to live anymore and one girl mentioned that she wanted to be cut out of her own skin. Experiences like this makes the audience frustrated and engulfed with rage because of the disheartening experiences these women and young girls have to go through. Nobody shouldn't have to experience these types of brutal situations, especially to the point where they want to end their lives. It's completely unfair to the women who just want to live their lives, but instead have their lives destroyed by these predators.

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Carlotta Gall is a British journalist and author. She covered Afghanistan and Pakistan for The New York Times for twelve years. She is currently the Istanbul bureau chief for The New York Times covering Turkey.
Gall for the most part includes instances in which women are quoted directly, but refuse to include their full names or photographs for fear of reprisals from Russian soldiers. The quotes are personal depending on each woman’s distinct and yet similar attacks. One 42 year old woman named Viktoriya (who chose to remain faceless)  described the fear she and other victims of the sexual abuse live with everyday. She told Gall, “The fear still remains. Sometimes when the electricity is out, I am seized by fear and I feel they could come back.”
Gall writes from a place of journalistic authority and has been able to gain insight into the vast net of sexual violence happening in the Ukraine. Not only is this possible due to her experiences as a writer, but also because the women and children who have suffered at the hands of Russian forces felt they were able to share their experiences with her through trust, time, and patience. She respects their boundaries through her writing and shares only what the survivors are comfortable with her sharing, without crossing the line of invasiveness.
Inclusion of photographs from Ukrainian towns held captive also adds to the credibility of the article.