The New York Times journalists talked with more than ten Ukrainian women who were sexually abused during the Russian occupation. Most of them asked not to disclose their names. The publication was also unable to independently verify the stories of victims of violence, but examined criminal cases and medical documents related to many of these cases.

For example:

— Nina said that she was diagnosed with Hepatitis C after she was beaten and raped by a Russian soldier in her house.

— Olga said that she was stripped, groped and forced to go to the toilet naked in front of Russian soldiers.

Yulia said that after her arrest in 2021 in the Russian—occupied part of Ukraine, Russian prison guards tied her naked to a table and threatened to rape her with a rubber truncheon.

— On March 7, 2022, two Russian soldiers broke into the house of 53-year-old Lesya and her husband Alexander in the Kiev region. One of them dragged her into a neighboring house.

“He raped me right away. The second shot my husband in the stomach and in the leg while I was being raped,” says Lesya.

She found her husband bleeding on the floor of another house. They tried to give him first aid, but two days later Alexander died in his wife’s arms. Lesya submitted an application to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine. According to her, her husband’s death was worse than rape. The woman returned home after the Ukrainian army knocked out the Russian Armed Forces. Her car was stolen, but then returned. The car had a sticker with the letter V.

— Maria, a 50-year-old resident of the Kherson region of Ukraine (name changed), reported that in January 2023 she was detained by masked men and taken to the front line in the Zaporizhia region. She was pushed into a small farmhouse where Russian soldiers were stationed. There she was forced to “serve as a slave.” One day, the soldiers of the Russian army “got drunk, beat me, and two soldiers raped me.” The next day, a Russian major entered the house, saw Maria beaten and dirty, and said that rumors were spreading about a woman at the front, so she had to flee to the Ukrainian side. Maria walked through minefields, crawled through the ruins of a destroyed bridge, and reached a Ukrainian checkpoint late at night.

— On February 26, 2022, Russian troops occupied Berdyansk, where 53-year-old Tatiana Tipakova lived. The woman resisted the occupation and recorded anti-Russian videos, speaking at protests against the seizure of lands by the Russian Armed Forces. Less than a month later, she was captured by Russian soldiers in her house and taken to a penal colony. Tipakova says she was tortured for a week, electrocuted, and faked being shot. Tipakova was also sexually assaulted by the guards. The bullying continued until the woman agreed to speak out on Russia’s side by recording a video on social media. After that, she was released and she went to Zaporozhye.

— 31-year-old Svetlana was carrying a 4-week-old baby and 4 other children when the Russian military invaded her village in March 2022 in southern Ukraine. The child’s father was a supporter of Russia, so he gathered with Russian soldiers and drank. One day, soldiers of the Russian Armed Forces put a mask on Svetlana’s face and took her to a neighboring village. According to the woman, her partner stayed in the van, and one of the soldiers dragged her into the store and raped her twice. After that, Svetlana’s partner silently escorted her home.

Six months later, Svetlana moved to another village with 5 children, separated from her partner and discovered that her stomach was growing. When the woman went to the doctor, she found out that she was already 23 weeks pregnant.

“I wanted to have an abortion. I went to the hospital, but they told me it was too late,” Svetlana said.

As a result, she left a child, Yaroslav was born on March 8, 2023. According to her, the child looks like a rapist.