The United Nations has made public this Friday that, since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, more than a thousand cases of sexual violence have been recorded in the country, and has specified that 89% of these episodes are attributed to Russian forces.
The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights details that between February 24, 2022, the date on which the offensive began, and the end of July of this year, 1,004 cases of sexual violence have been documented. Of these, 89% are attributed to Russian military personnel, while the remaining 11% is related to members of the Ukrainian authorities.
The report, 20 pages long and titled "Sexual Violence in the Context of Russia's Large-Scale Attack on Ukraine," is based on interviews with hundreds of victims and survivors, as well as other materials, including judicial documents and official files.
According to the document, the majority of the victims are men held in detention centers, although women and minors are also recorded among the affected, especially in the areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Army.
The abuses described include rapes, multiple rapes, genital mutilations, electric shocks, and blows to the genitals, in addition to other degrading treatments of a sexual nature. The youngest affected person is a four-year-old girl and the oldest is an 82-year-old woman, both assaulted by Russian forces.
Numerous male survivors reported having suffered electric shocks to the genitals with a Soviet-era military field phone known as "tapik." The report emphasizes that these torments constitute "a common form of sexual violence" against Ukrainian prisoners of war, and specifies that 155 of them suffered it "at least once."
The text also indicates that some detainees reported having been raped with various objects, while at least three women claimed to have been raped by Russian soldiers for weeks or even months; in one of the cases, after Russian troops killed their husband.
Regarding the facts attributed to the Ukrainian authorities, approximately half correspond to threats of sexual violence. The rest includes episodes of forced nudity, electric shocks and blows to the genitals, electric shocks and blows to the body while being naked, sexually humiliating treatment, in addition to two completed sexual assaults and two attempted rapes.
"I am deeply alarmed by the prevalence of these abominable acts documented in our report, and I fear that they will almost certainly continue amid the incessant violence we witness every day in Ukraine," stated the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk.
"Sexual violence is a serious feature of the large-scale armed attack against Ukraine. It must cease immediately, regardless of who the perpetrators are," Turk has stated, who argued that "given the high prevalence" of cases attributed to Russian forces, Moscow "must take concrete and visible measures to protect civilians and prisoners of war from all forms of torture, including sexual violence."
In the same vein, he insisted that "both Russia and Ukraine must investigate all credible allegations of sexual violence, promptly, thoroughly, and impartially, and ensure that those responsible are fully brought to justice, regardless of their rank or affiliation," according to a statement released by his office.
Finally, Turk reiterated his call for Russia to end the invasion "immediately, completely, and unconditionally" and to withdraw all its military forces from Ukrainian territory, in accordance with the United Nations Charter and International Law, in a context of blocking diplomatic efforts to achieve a peace agreement between the parties.