How Ukraine is trying to make Russia pay for crimes against women

Horrifying stories of sexual violence perpetrated by Russian soldiers have been piling up on prosecutors’ desks as Ukrainian officials and human rights groups document the crimes committed in the first year of Moscow’s invasion.

“In one village we found several victims of sexual violence. There were five victims on one street. It’s awful. These crimes took place in every city that was under the occupation,” recalled Anna Orel, an activist with the Andreev Foundation, a group that provides sexual assault victims with psychological aid.

“One victim was taken by a Russian soldier and asked to go to her friend’s house where they killed the husband, who tried to stop them from entering his house, and raped both the woman and her friend,” Orel told The Hill.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor General has confirmed 156 cases of sexual violence against women in cities and towns that were occupied by the Russians — but that is likely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to sexual crimes committed during the war.

As Ukraine marked a somber anniversary last week, the questions facing advocates and prosecutors is whether Russian aggressors will be brought to justice, and what that will look like for victims facing emotional, physical and societal trauma.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor General has reported over 150 cases of sexual violence against women in Russian-controlled cities and towns. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Iryna Didenko, from the Ukrainian prosecutor’s department investigating such crimes, said stories of violence against women have emerged in towns and villages across Ukraine. 

“We are collecting evidence for the future Russian war crimes tribunal. We don’t rush for a quick result; we don’t push our victims and witnesses. Some of them are not ready to bring a case or even talk about what they went through and we understand this,” she said. “For me and my team, the safety of our victims is the most important thing in these cases.”

The use of rape as a weapon of war has been documented in conflict zones around the world, according to Women for Women International CEO Laurie Adams. 

“Whether that is South Sudan or the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Rwanda during the genocide, in which thousands of women were raped. This is a systematic attempt to destroy people in communities,” Adams told The Hill in a phone call.

Adams said 35 people have come forward to Women for Women International or its partner agencies in Ukraine to say that they were raped. 

“But among that 35 — eight are children, which is absolutely horrifying. And not just children but they are aged eight and 11 to 16,” she said. 

But there’s one aspect of the Ukraine-Russia war that is different from previous conflicts in terms of systematic violence against women and girls, she added. 

“The fact that they are now in real time collecting the evidence in Ukraine while the conflict is still alive, rather than, say, in Bosnia where I think it was a good 20 years after, that’s a sign of progress,” Adams said. 

Outside the legal realm, women who have been victimized face many challenges in piecing back together their lives, including neighbors and community members who believe the women are at fault for their own assaults. 

“We have also found a really complicated situation because some people in Ukraine have a post-Soviet mindset. They often say to the women, ‘you were not raped.’ or ‘you went with the soldiers by your own desire,’” Orel said. 

“It’s unbelievable. Because Russians came here with machine guns and tanks and some people blame women,” she added. 

Orel said that Ukraine’s prosecutors look to her organization to help with speaking to the victims without pressure and re-traumatization. 

“We also think about reparations. Russia must answer for what their soldiers have done in Ukraine. And I’m sure that some tribunals should be created. I don’t believe that people would do such violent acts without the permission of their commanders, for example,” she said. 

These crimes against women are part of a larger effort by Ukraine to document war crimes as the war with Russia extends past its one year mark. So far Ukraine has recorded 71,000 cases, Didenko shared. 

Ukrainian women who have been victimized face a significant number of challenges in picking up the pieces of their lives. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Last year, the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom created the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group for Ukraine (ACA), an international justice initiative, to support Ukraine’s efforts to document and prosecute war crimes and other atrocities perpetrated against its citizens.

In a statement marking the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine, the State Department said that the United States has provided $30 million to support documentation and prosecution of war crimes and other atrocities since March 2022, and is working with Congress to provide an additional $28 million to support efforts by Ukraine’s domestic authorities and other international and foreign domestic courts to hold individuals accountable for war crimes.

“We believe that the Russian war crimes international tribunal will be created and all responsible for this war will be punished for all atrocities and sufferings which they brought to our people,” Didenko said. 

“As you understand, this depends on the will of the international community, so what our country can do — at least try to do — is make all victims return to simple life which Russians stole from them February 24, 2022, and from 2014 when they occupied Crimea and part of Donbas,” she added. 

But while efforts to document these crimes continue, Orel cautioned that it will be difficult to find the perpetrators of these violent acts.

“One woman said that I hope that that soldier is already dead. And I think that many of the soldiers that committed crimes are really dead and it will be really hard to find them,” she added.

“This is the complicated work … how to make them answer for their crimes. And I think Russia really needs to answer for what their soldiers did,” Orel said.