Ukraine accuses Russian soldiers of child abuse. 

As part of the many charges of abuse during the more than one-year invasion, Ukraine has charged two Russian soldiers with sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl and gang raping her mother in front of her father. 

Russian Soldiers Made Crime On Ukraine Childs

In March 2022, four homes in the Brovary district outside of Kyiv’s capital city were the scene of a string of sex crimes carried out by Russian soldiers from the 15th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade. Requests for comment from the Russian Defense Ministry were not answered. The brigade’s listed phone numbers were in the wrong sequence. When reached, two members of the Samara Garrison—of which the brigade is a part—said they were unable to provide contact information for the unit, with one stating that the information was classified. 

After being struck with a metal pot, the father was made to kneel as his wife was subjected to gang rape. Prior to abusing the four-year-old girl, one of the troops threatened to “make her a woman,” according to the documents curated by the prosecutor. The family was spared, but prosecutors claimed they were looking into additional crimes in the neighborhood, including murders that occurred around the same time. 

The Ukrainian prosecutors claimed that during Moscow’s vain attempt to seize Kyiv following its invasion on February 24, soldiers entered Brovary and intentionally terrorized the populace by pillaging and employing sexual abuse. “They sought out the ladies beforehand, plotted their acts and their responsibilities,” claimed the prosecutors, whose 2022 materials were based on interviews with witnesses and survivors. The majority of the alleged atrocities reportedly occurred on March 13 when soldiers “broke into the yard of the house where a young family lived in a state of alcoholic intoxication,” according to the prosecutor. 

The administration of President Vladimir Putin has consistently refuted accusations of crimes, claiming that it is battling “neo-Nazis” supported by the West in Ukraine. It has also rejected the idea that any sexual assault by soldiers has ever been brought up by military commanders. 

Aged 32 and 28, the accused soldiers were both snipers, according to the documents, which also stated that the older soldier had died and the younger, named Yevgeniy Chernoknizhniy, had returned to Russia. 

Prosecutors claim that after the alleged attack on the girl and her parents, the two soldiers went to the home of an elderly couple next door and beat them while raping a 17-year-old girl and a pregnant 41-year-old woman. The troops allegedly gang raped a 15-year-old girl and her mother at another location where several families resided. Prosecutors reported that every one of the victims was alive and receiving counseling and medical care. 

In a case that adds to the rising number of claims of routine sexual assault by Russian soldiers, prosecutors confirmed there is an ongoing pre-trial inquiry into the potential involvement of senior officials in the Brovary attacks. Since Russia moved tens of thousands of troops across the border, the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office has received more than 71,000 reports of war crimes, which they are currently looking into. 

Moscow is unlikely to demand the extradition of suspects, but anyone found guilty in connection with the case might be added to a global watch list, making it harder for them to travel. The Ukrainian military has also been charged by Russia with war crimes, including the murder of 10 prisoners of war. 

A U.N. human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine claims that the majority of the hundreds of allegations of sexual assault against Russian army men are true. Prosecutors in Ukraine have so far found 26 Russians guilty of war crimes, including one for rape. Some of these defendants were prisoners of war, while others were found guilty in pretrial detention.