According to a report published by Reuters, as part of the many charges of abuse during the more than one-year-long invasion, Ukraine has charged two Russian soldiers with sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl and gang-raping her mother in front of her father.
As stated in the prosecution's files, the soldiers aged 32 and 28, were both snipers. Yevgeniy Chernoknizhniy returned to Russia while the other soldier died.
The incidents were a part of a string of sex crimes conducted in March 2022 from the 15th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade in four homes in the Brovary district outside of Kyiv.
Soldiers stormed Brovary a few days later, looting and committing sexual violence as a planned technique to intimidate and terrorize the populace. According to the Ukrainian prosecutors, this happened during Moscow's vain attempt to conquer Kyiv after its invasion on Feb. 24. Moreover, based on interviews with witnesses and survivors, the soldiers singled out the women beforehand and coordinated their actions and roles.
The majority of the alleged crimes occurred on March 13 where soldiers broke into the yard of a home where a young family was living while intoxicated. The wife was gang raped while the father was struck with a metal pot and made to kneel. The four-year-old child was told by one of the soldiers that he would make her a woman.
Additionally, prosecutors claimed they are looking into additional crimes in the neighborhood, including murders that occurred around the same time.
The administration of President Vladimir Putin has consistently refuted accusations of crimes, claiming that it is battling "neo-Nazis" supported by the West in Ukraine. It has also been disputed that any sexual assault by soldiers has never been brought up by military commanders.
Following the alleged attack, the two soldiers went to an elderly couple’s house next door and beat them while also raping a pregnant woman (41) and a girl (17).
A 15-year-old girl and her mother were gang-raped by the soldiers at a different house where numerous people were residing.
The prosecutors said that all of the victims were alive and receiving counseling and medical care.
The prosecutors revealed that a pre-trial investigation is proceeding into the potential involvement of higher officials in the Brovary attacks, giving weight to the rising claims of routine sexual abuse by Russian soldiers.
Since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops across the border, the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office has received more than 71,000 reports of war crimes currently beening looked into.
Although there are international initiatives to pursue war crimes, including those by the International Criminal Court.
Ukrainian investigators are aware that the likelihood of locating and punishing individuals is minimal and that potential trials would primarily be in absentia.
Moscow is unlikely to demand the extradition of suspects, but anyone found guilty in absentia might be added to a global watch list.
The Ukrainian military has also been charged by Russia with war crimes, including the murder of 10 POWs.
The majority of the numerous allegations of sexual abuse, according to a U.N. human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, were leveled at the Russian troops.
Prosecutors in Ukraine have so far found 26 Russians guilty of war crimes, which includes one for rape. Some of these defendants were POWs, while others were found guilty in absentia.
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