Rape and torture: Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner on Russian crimes in Kharkiv region

Mykhailo Zahorodniy – Tuesday, 5 April 2022

More and more evidence of war crimes is appearing  as Ukrainian villages and towns are liberated from the Russian occupation.

Lyudmyla Denisova, Human Rights Commissioner for Verkhovna Rada [Ukraine’s parliament], has reported horrific incidents of sexual assault in the Kharkiv region.

For over a week, one Russian soldier raped a 29-year-old woman who was looking after her bed-ridden mother.

She and her mother were practically held hostage; the Russian soldier broke her mother’s phone so that she could not call the police and ask for help.

After a week of assaulting and harassing the woman, the Russian offered to "evacuate" her "to a safe place" and began professing his "love" for her. When she rejected him, he shot her mother before her eyes.

"The woman managed to escape and is currently undergoing a rehabilitation process," Denisova said.

Another incident took place in the village of Mala Rohan, near Kharkiv. A Russian soldier there raped a 31-year-old woman several times while holding her at gunpoint. She was hiding in a local school with her 5-year-old daughter, her mother, sister, brother, and other local residents.

"Holding his gun by her head, the Ruscist sexually assaulted the woman multiple times; saying that she reminded him of a girl he went to school with.

The Russian soldier wounded the woman’s neck and cheek with his knife, cut off her hair, and hit her face with a book," Denisova said.

The woman was given necessary medical assistance only after the village had been liberated from the Russian troops.

Denisova recalled that sexual assault is one of the war crimes banned by Article 27 of the Geneva Convention.

She said: "I appeal to the UN Commission to Investigate Human Rights Violations during Russia’s Military Invasion of Ukraine, and to the expert mission set up by OSCE states according to the Moscow Mechanism, to take into account these war crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine."

The Ukrainian government has developed guidelines for victims of sexual assault, which makes it possible to pass reports of war crimes on to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.