Monday, April 11, 2022

 

Ukrainian women and girls kept in a 

basement for 25 days by Russian troops, 

with nine now pregnant, says rights official

 From the NYT article that the Guardian headline references:

...Russians killed recklessly and sometimes sadistically, in part out of revenge.  

...

It was only when he returned after the Russians pulled out of Kyiv that Mr. Shepitko discovered just how far the Russian soldiers had gone. His house had been ransacked, filled with rubbish and beer bottles. Then, in a cellar under the garden shed, his nephew discovered the body of a woman. Slumped sitting down, bare legs akimbo, she wore a fur coat and nothing else. 

 She had been shot in the head, and he found two bullet casings on the ground. When the police pulled her out and conducted a search, they found torn condom wrappers and one used condom upstairs in the house. 

The abuse of the woman was one case of many, said Ukraine’s official ombudswoman for human rights, Lyudmyla Denisova. She said she had recorded horrific cases of sexual violence by Russian troops in Bucha and other places, including one in which a group of women and girls were kept in a basement of a house for 25 days. Nine of them are now pregnant, she said. 

...the Russian soldiers used sexual violence as a weapon of war against Ukrainian women. 

...

In accounts corroborated by a local military commander, residents described how a Ukrainian ambush that blew up the armored vehicle and supply truck led to a flurry of Russian violence targeting civilians.

The following day, a Russian armored personnel carrier drove down a street, firing randomly into homes with a heavy machine gun, said Serhiy Petrovsky, the head of a local unit of civilian volunteer soldiers. He doesn’t know how many people were wounded or killed, but said that after the Russians departed, he collected 20 bodies in and around the village, from this episode and others.

“They shot everything,” said Mr. Rodchenko. “They shot at houses. They shot a woman on the street. They shot at dogs.” 

...

 “The level of brutality of the army of terrorists and executioners of the Russian Federation knows no bounds,” the ombudswoman, Ms. Denisova, wrote. She appealed to the United Nations Human Rights Commission...

 Some of the worst crimes — including torture, rape and executions of detainees — were committed by troops based at the glass factory in Bucha, local residents and investigators said. ...

 Ukrainian investigators also have an immense resource from organizations, citizens and journalists who have posted more than 7,000 videos and photos on a government internet hub, warcrimes.gov.ua