Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered an address on Thursday observing one month of full-scale war with Russia by accusing Russian soldiers of a variety of human rights abuses against civilians, including looting, seizing humanitarian aid, and rape.
Ukrainian officials have sporadically mentioned reports of rape in urban areas that Russian soldiers have invaded, but without providing details or evidence. The U.S. State Department, in its formal accusation against Russia of war crimes this week, did not mention any incidents of alleged rape of Ukrainian civilians by Russian soldiers.
The Russian government has denied all allegations of rape against its soldiers, simply referring to them as “lies.”
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, escalating an existing eight-year-old war by sending Russian forces into major Ukrainian urban centers, including Kyiv, on February 24. In announcing the military “operation,” Russian leader Vladimir Putin claimed that Ukraine did not have a “tradition” of being a sovereign state and modern Ukraine was “completely created by Russia.” Putin recognized two Russian proxy entities, the Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics,” as sovereign states within what the international community respects as the borders of Ukraine, and claimed these “governments” requested Russian military intervention.
In his address, shared online by the state media outlet Ukrinform, Zelensky accused Russia of attempting to “wipe off the face of the earth” the modern Ukrainian state and declared that the Russians, by failing to end the war quickly, had already lost.
|The original plan of the Russian troops failed already in the first days of the invasion,” Zelensky declared. “They thought Ukrainians would be frightened. They thought Ukrainians would not fight. They were wrong.”
Zelensky then proceeded to list alleged human rights abuses that Russian troops have committed in the country.
“Russian troops destroy our cities. Kill civilians indiscriminately. Rape women. Abduct children. Shoot at refugees. Capture humanitarian convoys. They are engaged in looting,” the president accused. “They burn museums, blow up schools and hospitals. The target for them is universities, residential neighborhoods… Anything! Russian troops do not know the limits of evil.”
Zelensky did not elaborate on where and when these war crimes allegedly occurred, instead turning to the Russian people and urging them to protest against their government and its alleged abuses.
“I want to address the citizens of Russia separately. I am sure that there are many of you who are disgusted by the policy of your state,” Zelensky said. “Who are already just sick of what you see on TV. Of the lies of your propagandists on the Internet. Propagandists who are paid by your taxes. And they lie about the war, which is paid for by your taxes. And which makes all the citizens of Russia poorer. Poorer every day.”
“Isn’t that stupid?” he asked. “Your state collects taxes from you to make you poorer. To isolate you from the world. To make it easier for them to control you. And easier to send you to the war to die.”
Zelensky concluded insisting that “Ukraine has never threatened the security of Russia” and urging Russians to “save your sons from the war.”
Zelensky’s accusation of rape against Russian soldiers are not the first from Ukrainian officials, though the direct accusation from the country’s head of state is an escalation. In early March, Zelensky’s top diplomat Dmytro Kuleba told reporters that Kyiv had documented “numerous cases” of rape during a visit to London, without elaborating.
“We have numerous cases of, unfortunately, when Russian soldiers rape women in the Ukrainian cities,” Kuleba said at the time, according to the Agence-France Presse (AFP).
Last week, four Ukrainian lawmakers sent to London to advocate for their country repeated the accusations of rape, alleging that Russia was using “medieval siege tactics” including sexual violence against the elderly.
“We’re talking about senior citizens of Ukraine,” lawmaker Lesia Vasylenko told the press in the United Kingdom. “Most of these women … have either been executed after the crime of rape, or they have taken their own lives. The main problem is that victims and families do not have the strength or capacity to come forward.”
Vasylenko also alleged that as many as 90 percent of the civilian buildings in the port city of Mariupol, currently under some of the heaviest fire from Russian forces, have been shelled or damaged, according to the U.K. Independent.
The lawmakers did not present any formal evidence for these allegations.
On Tuesday, Parliament member Inna Sovsun announced that Ukraine’s prosecutor general had compiled evidence of one case of rape by a Russian soldier in Kyiv, suggesting that the government would soon formally publish the evidence.
Russian officials have denied all allegations of sexual abuse in Ukraine.
People attend the funeral of Ukrainian serviceman Ihor Fedorchyk killed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at Lychakiv cemetery, in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on March 24, 2022. (YURIY DYACHYSHYN/AFP via Getty Images)
“We do not believe the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office. The Russian military personnel do not attack or shoot at civilians. The Russian army helps civilians,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday, according to the Russian news agency Tass. “As for rape charges, we do not believe this at all. It’s a lie.”
Peskov accused Ukrainian fighters of the crimes that Moscow is facing charges of.
“There are ever more eye-witnesses coming out of cities who confirm that civilians are being kept there as a human shield and that nationalist battalions open fire on civilians trying to leave Ukrainian cities,” Peskov alleged. The spokesman also claimed that Russia had put together humanitarian corridors to help civilians out, but the Ukrainian government was keeping civilians “unaware” so as to use them as “human shields.”
“In addition to physical extermination of the population in Chernigov, Sumy and Zaporozhye, commanders of the nationalist battalions have organized mass looting of residential buildings, and public and private organizations,” the head of the center, Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, claimed, Tass reported. “They use seized ambulances and postal vehicles to take material valuables toward Ukraine’s western borders.”
Mizintsev also claimed Ukrainians are destroying their own critical infrastructure and attacking ambulances, without providing evidence for the claims.
American Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of “war crimes” in a statement on Wednesday.
“Today, I can announce that, based on information currently available, the U.S. government assesses that members of Russia’s forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine,” the statement read in part.
“We’ve seen numerous credible reports of indiscriminate attacks and attacks deliberately targeting civilians, as well as other atrocities,” Blinken alleged. “Russia’s forces have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping centers, and ambulances, leaving thousands of innocent civilians killed or wounded. Many of the sites Russia’s forces have hit have been clearly identifiable as in-use by civilians.”
Blinken notably did not mention any evidence of rape or other sexual crimes against civilians.
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