{"id":14268,"date":"2023-01-05T07:05:29","date_gmt":"2023-01-05T15:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14268"},"modified":"2023-01-09T07:19:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T15:19:38","slug":"fear-still-remains-ukraine-finds-sexual-crimes-where-russian-troops-ruled-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14268","title":{"rendered":"“\u2018Fear Still Remains\u2019: Ukraine Finds Sexual Crimes Where Russian Troops Ruled”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/span>Carlotta Gall,\u00a0Photographs by <\/span>Laura Boushnak, front page article,\u00a0Jan. 6, 2023<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigators have uncovered widespread evidence of abuse by Moscow\u2019s forces, including rape and forced nudity<\/a>. Kremlin officials have repeatedly denied accusations of rights violations.<\/em><\/p>\n

(World Campaign\/Planet Earth Foundation public service campaign on Russian sexual violence against Ukrainians.)<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Olha,<\/picture><\/p>\n

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Olha, a 26-year-old Ukrainian, faced sexual violence by Russian soldiers when she was detained in Kherson.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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KHERSON, Ukraine \u2014 On her eighth or ninth day in Russian detention, Olha, a 26-year-old Ukrainian, was tied to a table, naked to the waist. For 15 minutes, her interrogator leveled obscenities at her, then threw a jacket over her and let seven other men into the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was to frighten,\u201d she remembered. \u201cI did not know what would come next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sitting in Olha\u2019s cramped kitchen weeks later in Kherson, in southern Ukraine, Anna Sosonska, an investigator with the prosecutor general\u2019s office, listened to her recount the ordeal \u2014 an account of forced nudity that, prosecutors say, added to an accumulation of evidence that Russian forces had used sexual crimes as a weapon of war in the places they once ruled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are finding this problem of sexual violence in every place that Russia occupied,\u201d said Ms. Sosonska, 33. \u201cEvery place: Kyiv region, Chernihiv region, Kharkiv region, Donetsk region and also here in Kherson region.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A village in the Kherson region where Anna Sosonska, the deputy head of a department in the prosecutor general\u2019s office responsible for investigating conflict-related sexual crimes, went looking for rape victims.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A woman in a village in the Kherson region explaining last month to Ms. Sosonska, left, how her brother was beaten by Russian troops.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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After months of bureaucratic and political delays, Ukrainian officials are gathering pace in documenting sexual crimes, which are prevalent and devastating in times of war but often remain hidden under layers of shame, stigma and fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found all types of cases of war crimes: rape, forced nudity, sexual torture\u201d inflicted on men, women and children, Ms. Sosonska said. A pattern to the crimes is emerging, she added. \u201cNow we see there is a line of war crimes in the Russian Army and among Russian commanders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russian officials have repeatedly denied accusations of human rights abuses<\/a>, despite widespread evidence<\/a> and accounts collected by Ukrainian and international investigators<\/a>. A spokeswoman for Russia\u2019s Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, recently dismissed a report by the U.N. Human Rights Commission as unsubstantiated testimonies and no more than \u201crumors and gossip.\u201d<\/p>\n

After investigating some areas Russia retreated from, an independent international commission reported to the United Nations<\/a> in October that \u201can array of war crimes committed in Ukraine\u201d included cases of sexual violence against women and girls.<\/p>\n

Victims ranged from older than 80 to as young as a 4-year-old girl forced to perform oral sex on a soldier, which is rape, the report said. It detailed more than a dozen cases involving gang rapes, family members forced to watch a relative being sexually assaulted and sexual violence against detainees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Iryna Didenko, who leads the prosecutor\u2019s department investigating such crimes, has already opened 154 cases of conflict-related sexual violence. The real number, she said, is \u201cmuch, much more.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n