Day after day, on the town after city, a police officer and prosecutor go door to door in Ukraine’s Kherson region.
Treading muddy streets, previous properties broken by artillery strikes, they search for these left behind. The 2 males kind a specialist unit that’s traveled from the capital, Kyiv.
A mom and daughter come out to their yard. “We’re on the lookout for sexual crimes,” the prosecutor, Oleksandr Kleshchenko, says.
Till early October, this space of the nation was occupied by Russian troops. Burnt-out automobiles litter the fields. The letter ‘Z’ — a logo utilized by Russian forces — marks the partitions.
The scars of struggle run deep right here. Russia has used sexual violence as a “weapon of struggle” — a deliberate “army technique” — in its conquest of Ukraine, United Nations investigators have said. They’ve even relayed allegations of Russian troopers carrying Viagra.
Russian authorities have denied accusations of struggle crimes in Ukraine.
In two weeks of labor within the Kherson area, the group from Kyiv has documented six allegations of sexual assault. The true quantity is sort of definitely a lot increased, they are saying.
Tatiana, age 56, says she is without doubt one of the victims. CNN is withholding her final identify and that of her village to guard her identification.
Strolling over damaged glass, she reveals us into her brother’s home, the place she says two Russian troopers compelled their manner by way of her door on August 26.
“They walked round these rooms,” she says. “One stayed there, and the opposite one, who raped me, got here in right here. He got here in, walked slightly bit across the room and right here on this place, he began groping me.”
“I advised him, ‘No, no, I’m not of the age that I can provide you one thing, search for youthful women.’”
He pinned her in opposition to the wardrobe, she says, and tore at her garments. “I used to be crying, begging him to cease, however with no success,” she says. “The one thought I had was to remain alive.”
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