March 07, 2023

Violence in the Ranks


Violence in the Ranks
Olena Zalenska speaking at the United for Justice conference, 2023. President of Ukraine

The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine has begun an investigation into 171 cases of sexual violence committed by Russian military personnel against residents of Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.

The investigation was announced by the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, at the United for Justice conference in Lviv on March 4. A video of her speech was posted to her Telegram channel on the same day.

"The main thing is that we know about these cases only because these people found the strength to speak. How many suffer in silence, especially in the occupied territories, we do not know," Zelenska said in her speech, noting the difficulty in speaking out given media attention and the status of rape as "a highly stigmatized crime."

The first lady said that "the number and overtness of the rapes of peaceful Ukrainians give us confidence that this is a deliberate policy of the Russian army, this is their deliberate psychological and physical weapon against Ukrainians."

Zelenska said that the figures do not only include women, but also 39 men, 13 minors, and one young boy. She went on to outline individual cases of sexual violence being investigated by the Attorney General's Office.

Zelenska's declaration of 171 cases represented an increase from the 155 indicated in the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine's January 20 report. The majority of cases were in the Kherson and Kiev regions, with 65 and 52 cases, respectively.

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