She chose Oksana as her pseudonym. The Ukrainian civil servant, 47, in the summer of 2023, wanted to testify about what happened to her during the Russian invasion, as part of the first conference on sexual violence in wartime organized in Kyiv by the SEMA-Ukraine organization. Oksana opened her mouth, but her voice faltered. Her gaze dropped to the ground: "Actually, I don't remember anything. I was blindfolded, I'm so ashamed." All around her, people delicately avoided watching her walk away toward the exit.

"Speaking out is like condemning yourself to a form of death," said one woman. She, too, has taken on a code name: Viktoria, a 61-year-old shopkeeper. Viktoria had been considering testifying for months but was still reluctant. "Given my age, I'm strong enough to talk. It's up to us, the older ones. Not the young ones who still have their lives ahead of them," Viktoria said, as if she was convincing herself. Of course, she has never said anything to those close to her. They suspect it but they, too, avoid the subject. Then, all of a sudden, Viktoria realized: "The time has come for me to sacrifice myself, to put my dignity aside." She tried not to think about anything except her country. She had made her decision.

The story took place in a lovely wooded neighborhood on the outskirts of Kyiv, at the start of the Russian invasion in March 2022. Faced with the advancing tanks, almost the entire population had fled, including Viktoria's family. She insisted on staying and protecting the villa. The couple had already lost everything once in 2014 when the war in Donbas had forced them to leave Donetsk, in the eastern part of the country. The family couldn't afford to start over from scratch again; they all knew it. Viktoria told herself that Russian soldiers wouldn't care about a woman like her, already a grandmother and without a man at home. Harmless.

When about a hundred soldiers stormed the village, they ordered her not to leave. Viktoria could hear them looting one deserted house after another, positioning their tanks and snipers everywhere. After a few days, a Russian soldier pushed open the gate. Only his eyes were visible between the helmet and the scarf covering his face. He couldn't have been more than 20 years old. "Take off your clothes," he had said, before pushing her outside, naked in the snow. His rifle rifle jabbed her in the back, forcing her to run around the house. When she fell to her knees, he'd kicked her back up.

She trembled and begged:

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