Hundreds of Ukrainian women and girls have experienced sexual violence by Russian troops during the war, leaving behind immense physical and emotional trauma. Many have become pregnant or have been forced to live with lifelong memories of the horror, while some have decided to speak out and demand justice, breaking their silence to denounce the use of violence as a weapon of war.
Hundreds of Ukrainian women and girls have reported sexual violence by Russian troops during the nearly four-year war in Ukraine, according to Ukrainian authorities and humanitarian organizations. However, according to human rights defenders, the true number of victims is believed to be much higher. Some of the women say they became pregnant as a result of the abuse and now raise children who are constant reminders of their painful experiences. Others say they were forced to serve against their will for entire groups of Russian soldiers.
Others say their lives were turned into a daily nightmare after they were raped while they were powerless to react. The New York Times spoke to several women who say they were sexually abused by Russian troops. Most of them asked that their full identities not be made public to protect their privacy. Although the details of their claims could not be independently verified, the newspaper reviewed criminal reports and medical records related to many of the cases, and spoke with representatives of organizations familiar with their stories.
The Kremlin has said that many of Ukrainian women’s reports of sexual violence are unfounded. For Ukraine, sexual violence remains a hidden wound. Activists say many women are reluctant to report cases, either to avoid stigmatization and the rekindling of painful memories, or because they still live in territories occupied by Russia and have no hope for justice. However, some women have decided to speak out. Supported by survivors’ groups or motivated to expose what they call the use of violence as a weapon of war, they have broken their silence. Here are some of their stories:
LESYA: “I THOUGHT IT WAS OVER FOR ME”
On March 7, 2022, two weeks after the Russian invasion began, Lesya, a 53-year-old economist, and her husband, Sasha, heard a knock on the door of their house in a village near Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. According to her, two Russian soldiers forced their way inside. One of them grabbed her and dragged her to a neighbor’s house. “He raped me right away,” Lesya says. “While this was happening, the other soldier shot my husband in the stomach and leg.” She says that four other Russian soldiers approached the house where she was being held. “I thought my life would end there, they had knives, rifles and grenades,” she recalls. But, she says, the soldiers stopped the aggressor and drove him away.
Lesya then began searching for her husband. She found him lying on the floor of another house, bleeding, while neighbors were trying to give him first aid. She begged the Russian soldiers to let her drive him to the hospital, but they refused to let her use the vehicle.
Sasha died in her arms two days after being wounded. One of his last words was: “Thank God my father didn’t live to see this,” Lesya recalls, shaken by the memory. A doctor who investigated the case confirmed that he had died as a result of gunshot wounds to the abdomen during the Russian occupation. Lesya has filed a complaint with the prosecutor general’s office, accusing Russian forces of rape, and a criminal investigation has been launched. She says the loss of her husband was even more devastating than the violence she experienced. Lesya continues to live in their home. Her car was stolen and later returned after the Ukrainian army drove Russian forces out of the Kiev region. It had the letter “V” on it, a symbol used by Russia in the war. She has not driven the car since.
SVITLANA: “I WANTED TO TERMINATE MY PREGNANCY”
Svitlana, 31, was already worried about her 4-week-old son, who was born with a fragile health and was left without medical care after the Russian army occupied her village in southern Ukraine. Then, she says, Russian soldiers forced their way into her home and threatened to take the baby away to Russia. She intervened and, according to her account, the soldiers withdrew. But after that harrowing event in March 2022, her partner, the baby’s father, began to approach the Russian troops.
“He, who was sympathetic to Russia, often invited them to his house and drank with them,” she says. One day, while the men were gathered, her partner forced her into a white van with two soldiers. According to her, they put a mask over her face and took her to a nearby village. Her partner stayed in the vehicle while one of the soldiers forced her into a shop and raped her twice. She remembers that they were carrying weapons. Then, her partner walked her home without saying a word. Six months later, Svitlana left with the baby and four other children from a previous relationship to another village. She and her partner had separated. After a while, she noticed that her belly was growing. The pregnancy test came back positive.
“I wanted to terminate the pregnancy,” she recalls. “I went to the hospital, but they said it was too late. I was 23 weeks pregnant.” Her son, Yaroslav, was born on March 8, 2023. The regional prosecutor’s office said it was investigating the case and had received a report from the gynecologist who treated Svitlana. She says the boy resembles the person who raped her. She is currently receiving psychological support to cope with the situation. Today, she says: “Yaroslav is developing faster than other children. He is already speaking fluently. Sometimes I think about the decision I wanted to make, but I love him almost as much as my other children.”
TETIANA: “IT WAS THE MOST HORRIBLE PRISON”
When Russian troops occupied the city of Berdyansk in southeastern Ukraine on the night of February 26, 2022, Tetiana Tipakova decided to resist. Tetiana, 53, a former student leader and entrepreneur, wrapped herself in the Ukrainian flag and organized protests against the occupation. She gave speeches at the city hall and posted videos on social media. Less than a month later, she says, Russian soldiers broke into her home and arrested her. Eight armed men, their faces covered, handcuffed her, put a bag over her head, and took her to a prison colony.
“I knew that place – it was the most terrible prison in Berdyansk,” she recalls. There, for seven days, she says, she was subjected to violence and torture. On the fourth day, she says, they took her outside the prison and staged a shooting to scare her. During her detention, she says she faced violent interrogations, physical and psychological abuse, beatings and electric shocks. After the electric shock, she remembers smelling burning for a long time. She also says she was sexually assaulted by prison guards.
According to her, the goal was to psychologically break her, force her to silence and spread Russian propaganda in the city. The abuse, she says, continued until she agreed to record a video on social media in which she declared that the protests against Russia had been a mistake. After that, she was released and fled to the city of Zaporizhzhia, where she now runs a charity organization that helps internally displaced people. Tetiana’s story has become well-known in Ukraine and has been widely shared on social media. She has been invited to testify in The Hague about human rights violations in the territories occupied by Russia. She regularly participates in international conferences and collaborates with a Ukrainian organization that collects testimonies from women survivors of violence during the war. She hopes that through her voice, she can help shed light on war crimes and bring justice.
MARIA: “TWO SOLDIERS RAPE ME”
Maria, a lawyer, had often provided legal assistance to Ukrainians living in territories occupied by Russia after the first intervention in 2014. When full-scale war broke out in 2022 and Russian troops took control of her city in the southern Kherson Region, she says she was charged under Russian law as a “threat to the security of the Russian Federation.”
Maria, who asked to be identified by pseudonym, recounts that in January 2023 she was forcibly arrested by a group of men with their faces covered. She was told that she would be deported from the region. According to her, she and another male detainee were taken to the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region. On the way, she heard a radio conversation in which one soldier told another: “Take the man; he will dig trenches and chop wood for you. Do whatever you want with the woman.” Maria, 50, says she was pushed into a small village house, where many Russian soldiers were stationed. There, she says, she was forced to stay in inhumane conditions and face abuse from the soldiers, before they were sent into fierce fighting. “That day they got drunk, beat me, and two soldiers raped me,” she recounts.
The next morning, she said, a Russian major arrived and found her wounded and lying motionless on the floor. He told her that word had spread about a woman near the front line. According to her account, the major told her that the only way to escape was to walk to the Ukrainian-controlled area. “He told me: ‘If you make it, light a candle for me. No one has ever made it this far,’” Maria recalls. She says she walked through minefields, crossed the rubble of a destroyed bridge, and reached a Ukrainian checkpoint late in the evening.
“When I saw the first checkpoint, I fell to my knees,” she says. “I hugged the soldiers and cried.” Iryna Dovgan, head of the organization SEMA Ukraine, which helps victims of sexual violence during the war, confirmed that Maria has given evidence to the prosecutor general’s office, accusing Russian forces of rape, and that criminal proceedings have been initiated. Because of her injuries, Maria says she could not walk for weeks. She was also emotionally exhausted. Recently, she joined a support group for survivors of sexual violence. For weeks, she remained locked in her house until a member of the group helped her get out and seek help. “I was completely locked in,” she says. (New York Times)