The besieged city of Mariupol, where allegations of sexual violence by Russian soldiers have been made. Photo / AP
*Content warning: This article discusses sexual assault and may be upsetting.
A Russian soldier repeatedly raped a young mother while holding a knife to her throat, amid growing evidence of sexual violence being used as a weapon of war in Ukraine.
Olha – not her real name – had sought shelter with her mother, siblings and 5-year-old daughter in the basement of a school in Malaya Rohan, a village in the Kharkhiv region which had been occupied by Russian forces from February 25.
At around midnight on March 13, a Russian soldier armed with an assault rifle and a pistol forcibly entered the school. He made the 40 villagers in the basement line up and told Olha to hand over her child, which she refused to do.
After a few hours, he ordered her to follow him out of the basement to a classroom on a second floor, where he forced her to perform oral sex and made her undress.
"The whole time he held the gun near my temple or put it into my face," the 31-year-old told Human Rights Watch. "Twice he shot at the ceiling and said it was to give me 'more motivation'."
The soldier, who revealed he was 20, then raped her. When she sought permission to put her clothes back on, the soldier would only allow her to wear a top, telling her to keep her bottom half naked. She was raped again, with a knife held to her throat.
Photographs shared with Human Rights Watch, dated March 19 and 20, showed cut marks and bruising on Olha's face and neck, where the soldier hit her face with a book and repeatedly slapped her. "I am lucky to be alive," she said after reaching a bomb shelter in Kharkiv when the soldier left the school.
The story is one of a growing number of testimonies about the use of conflict-related sexual violence in Ukraine to have emerged in recent days. They include a woman from a village in Kyiv who told how two Russian soldiers broke into her home, killed her husband and raped her while her 4-year old son wept in a corner.
"The cases we documented amount to unspeakable, deliberate cruelty and violence against Ukrainian civilians," said Hugh Williamson, the Europe and Central Asia director of Human Rights Watch.
"Rape, murder, and other violent acts against people in the Russian forces' custody should be investigated as war crimes."
Rights Watch said it had received several other allegations of sexual violence at the hands of Russian soldiers in the Chernihiv region and Mariupol, although they are yet to independently verify them.
Unverified extracts from the diary of a 16-year-old known as Katya, which were shared on Instagram by Lilia Podkopaeva, a Ukrainian gymnast, suggest civilians in Mariupol are being forced to live with the bodies of their dead relatives while Russian military forces "rape children and the elderly".
The journal, which details the violence inflicted on the besieged city, has been compared to the diary entries of people in Nazi-occupied cities during World War II.
"You know that feeling when it hurts? I once fell in love with a boy, but he didn't fall in love with me, and I thought it hurt," Katya wrote.
"But it turned out that it hurts to see your mother die in front of you. Corpses stink so much. They were everywhere. I covered my brother's eyes with my mother's scarf so that he would not see this. While we were running, I nearly vomited several times.
"Those freaks searched for people in basements and killed them. Those who survived said that the Russian military were able to rape children and the elderly, and even corpses. If there is a God, why does he allow this?"
Ukrainian MPs have claimed cases of sexual violence are under-reported, and that Russian soldiers are gang-raping women. "We have numerous cases…when Russian soldiers rape women in the Ukrainian cities," the country's foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said.
Melinda Simmons, the British ambassador to Ukraine, tweeted: "Women raped in front of their kids, girls in front of their families, as a deliberate act of subjugation. Rape is a war crime."
Sexual harm - Where to get help
If it's an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
If you've ever experienced sexual assault or abuse and need to talk to someone, contact Safe to Talk confidentially, any time 24/7:
• Call 0800 044 334
• Text 4334
• Email support@safetotalk.nz
• For more info or to web chat visit safetotalk.nz.
Alternatively contact your local police station - click here for a list.
If you have been sexually assaulted, remember it's not your fault.