A Ukrainian official alleged in a post on Telegram earlier today that Russian troops raped civilians, some as young as 11 and 14 years old, during their occupation of the Kyiv region in March.
“A 14-year-old girl was raped by 5 occupying men. She is pregnant now. Bucha,” wrote Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsperson for human rights, referring to the Kyiv suburb where Russian forces carried out horrific atrocities.
“An 11-year old boy was raped in front of his mother — she was tied to a chair to watch,” Denisova wrote, of another case in Bucha.
“A 20-year-old woman, raped by three occupiers in all possible ways at once. Irpen.”
Bucha and Irpin were both liberated by Ukrainian forces during a counteroffensive in late March.
According to eyewitness accounts, evidence collected by Ukrainian investigators, phone calls intercepted by German intelligence, and satellite imagery, Russian troops tortured and killed hundreds of civilians during their monthlong occupation of Bucha. Authorities and residents are still finding bodies across the city.
While that suburb has seized international attention, a number of nearby towns and cities were subjected to other acts of brutal, indiscriminate violence.
In Borodyanka, anther Kyiv-region city, Russian forces relentlessly shelled apartment complexes, from which bodies are still being extracted. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said today that even more people died in Borodyanka than in Bucha.
The discovery of the atrocities carried out in March suggest that similar acts are being inflicted on other regions of Ukraine currently under Russian occupation.
On April 3, Human Rights Watch released a report documenting the “repeated rape” of a 31-year-old woman in Kharkiv.
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter that the rape allegations documented by Denisova suggest that Russian troops are doing the same elsewhere.
“They probably commit same unspeakable crimes in the occupied towns as you read this tweet,” he wrote. “European politicians can stop this madness by imposing oil and gas embargo on Russia. Do it now!”
Two U.N. officials, Pramila Patten and Sima Bahous, also said in a statement that “mounting allegations of sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls” in Ukraine are shocking and “raise serious questions about possible war crimes.”