Two and a half years after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, the voices of victims of sexual violence committed by Russian soldiers are still rarely heard. The trauma, combined with the impossibility to access occupied territories, even for international organizations, renders documentation work difficult. The NGO SEMA Ukraine, which organized a press conference on Thursday, June 13, in Paris, stressed that "these rapes began as early as 2014," when the war in the Donbass began, and "number in the thousands" since the start of the large-scale offensive in February 2022. "They mainly affect women, but also children and men, civilians and soldiers still held in Russian prisons," said the organization, founded by survivors and supported by the Foundation of Dr. Denis Mukwege.

Oleksandra Matviichuk, a human rights lawyer, president of the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties and winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, has been working to record these crimes since 2014. "Many don't talk, so what we have is only a small part of the phenomenon," said the lawyer. " We are just beginning to perceive the scale of this violence committed by Russia," added Florence Hartmann, spokeswoman and political advisor to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda from 2000 to 2006. To date, only 209 cases have been identified by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General. Other cases are currently being analyzed.

In the meantime, these crimes are still being committed on a massive scale behind closed doors in the territories controlled by Moscow. "Russia gives the figure of 400 female prisoners in the occupied territories. But according to our data, 2,000 civilians are currently being held captive, at least 80% of whom are subjected to sexual violence," said journalist Lyudmila Huseynova, a member of SEMA Ukraine. These include "forced undressing, sexual touching, torture with blows and electric shocks to the genitals, threats of rape and rape itself." The prisoners are also denied hygiene products, water, medical care and legal protection.

These rapes are not isolated incidents or the result of individual excesses, but a weapon of war in their own right. "The UN Commission of Inquiry identified similar patterns in many places and concluded that this was a deliberate and systematic policy," said Hartmann. "This is part of a campaign of persecution against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war." According to the essayist, "these are not simply war crimes. These rapes constitute crimes against humanity or genocide, depending on intent."

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