The prosecutor general of Ukraine will open its first investigation of an alleged rape committed by a Russian soldier during the invasion, a Ukrainian official said on Tuesday.
The sex crime was allegedly committed by a Russian soldier against a Ukrainian woman in Brovary, approximately 12 miles east of Kyiv. Allegations of rapes committed by soldiers against Ukrainian women have been numerous as refugees fleeing war-torn cities begin to recount the atrocities committed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invaders.
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var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_48007526", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"977199"} }); ","_id":"0000017f-b4eb-d6f7-ab7f-f4ef7d640000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video Embed”Prosecutor General of Ukraine opened the first official investigation of the rape of a Ukrainian woman in Brovary district committed by the Russian soldier,” Inna Sovsun, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament, tweeted on Tuesday. “We heard rumors earlier, but this is the first time confirmed by the official complaint made by the surviving woman.”
https://twitter.com/InnaSovsun/status/1506385327769980930?s=20&t=mQ4t__nLOA45nKVpoO8XRwThe Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office said it is in the process of gathering testimony from witnesses and victims of war crimes committed by Russian forces.
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“Prosecutors continue obtaining testimonies from witnesses and victims who fled theatres of war and who have a firsthand information about war crimes committed by RF. Every victim has the right to seek and obtain justice and compensation for losses incurred,” Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova tweeted on Tuesday.
Several women have spoken out in the press since the invasion about alleged rapes being committed by Russian troops.
“They already started to rape our women. There was information from people that I personally know that a 17-year-old girl — it happened to her and then they killed her,” Svetlana Zorina, who lives with her grandmother in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, told CNN on March 4.
Kherson Mayor Igor Kolykhaiev issued a new rule on March 2, after the occupation, that locals must only go out in pairs.
“We try not to go outside because it’s dangerous,” Zorina added.
In Irpin, a besieged town on the outskirts of Kyiv, Anastasia Taran told a Ukrainian media outlet about the war crimes she is witnessing from Russian soldiers.
“They rape women, and the dead are just being dumped,” Taran said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Member of Parliament Lesia Vasylenko both echoed the reports of Russian soldiers sexually abusing civilians and, in some cases, senior citizens.
“We’re talking about senior citizens of Ukraine. It’s an extremely painful topic for us to take up, but unfortunately, it’s still the very beginning of the atrocities that will go on,” Vasylenko told British reporters last week. “Putin’s army is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
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Speaking at a London think tank in March, Kuleba said, “We have numerous cases of, unfortunately, when Russian soldiers rape women in the Ukrainian cities.”
Kuleba has called for a special tribunal to investigate and punish the Russian authorities for the conduct of their troops.
