Ukrainian Attorney General Andriy Kostin has denounced a “dramatic increase” in sexual assaults by Russian soldiers. As a result of the Russian offensive war against Ukraine, all genders and age groups are affected. Both children and old people, Kostin said.
Russian soldiers used sexual violence in a targeted way – as a “method of war to humiliate Ukrainians”, he claimed to the Funke media group and the French newspaper “Ouest-France”. Kostin told the newspapers that four months ago, only 40 cases of sexual assault were registered, but now there are more than 110. “Surgent trend.”
Mainly occupied territories affected
There is also a large number of unreported cases. “In many cases, people are raped, tortured and then killed by Russian soldiers. Rapes often take place in front of relatives and children,” says Kostin. Occupied territories are particularly affected. According to Kostin, Russian commanders often ordered or at least supported rape. The information provided by the Attorney General could not initially be independently verified.
50,197 war crimes cases registered
The German director of human rights organization Human Rights Watch, Wenzel Michalski, also spoke of a system of violence. “Atrocities against civilians are part of the war tactics of the Russian soldiers in Ukraine,” Michalski told the newspapers of the Funke media group: “The violence of the soldiers, including the rapes, is not punished by the top Russian politicians and the army . . On the contrary: forces that act particularly brutally are rewarded.” The violence is in any case accepted by the leadership.
According to Kostin, nearly 8,500 civilians, including 440 children, have died in Ukraine since the start of the war more than nine months ago. More than 11,000 civilians were injured. The attorney general’s office has so far dealt with 50,197 war crimes, he told newspapers.
Source: Krone
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