A good five weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, more and more targeted attacks by Russian soldiers on women and girls are being counted. Politicians and eyewitnesses report cruel deeds.
Ukrainian politicians have accused the Russian troops, who marched in five weeks ago, of targeted violence against women and girls.
MP Oleksiy Goncharenko reported in a video published on Twitter on Sunday that naked bodies of women were found on the side of the road not far from Kyiv. “You understand what happened,” he said – obviously implying rape. The Russians tried to burn the bodies of the women, Goncharenko said. This could not be checked at first.
In the town of Irpen, not far from Kyiv, women and girls were shot, Mayor Olexander Markuschyn told Deutsche Welle. “Then they were run over by tanks.” There was initially no reaction to the allegations from the Russian side.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a video message published on Twitter about the reported atrocities that the faster the Ukrainian army can “liberate” the areas occupied by Russia, the more human rights will be protected there: “Women are not raped. Children will not see their mothers raped. Civilians are not killed.” He added that his country therefore needs support. “We need weapons – now.”
Human Rights Watch: War crimes appear to have been condoned
According to the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, war crimes against civilians in Ukraine are not exceptional and are apparently tolerated by the Russian army. “These are definitely not isolated cases,” said the Germany director of the organization, Wenzel Michalski, on Sunday evening on ARD.
He pointed to killings, rapes and shelling of civilian apartment blocks. “That actually indicates that at least war crimes are tolerated. Perhaps this is not systematically planned. However, the shelling of civilian residential areas and the use of banned weapons indicate that this is accepted and used as a war tactic.”
Michalski called for an investigative commission mandated by the United Nations. It is important that the dead are not buried now, so as not to destroy evidence. “We demand from the Russian government that these crimes are investigated and those responsible are held accountable,” he said, without expressing confidence that this will happen.
HRW published a report in Warsaw on Sunday documenting cases in the areas around the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Chernihiv. According to the human rights activists, the basis for this is the questioning of ten eyewitnesses, victims and residents. These include the shooting of a man on March 4 in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, and at least six men in the village of Staryi Bykiv near Chernihiv by Russian soldiers. A woman reported that she was raped several times by a soldier in the Kharkiv region.
Source: Stern
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