Amid mounting evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, a young
Ukrainian mother is speaking out about what may be the first
rape case connected to the 2022 invasion to go before The Hague:
She says she was repeatedly raped by Russian soldiers while her
4-year-old son sat just a few feet away.

In an interview with The Times of London published Tuesday, the
woman, identified only by the pseudonym Natalya, says she still
has not been able to bring herself to tell her son that his
father was murdered by the Russian soldiers.

�We cannot bury him, we can�t get to the village, because the
village is still occupied,� the 33-year-old mother said of the
family�s home in Brovary, a suburb of Kyiv.

It was there that she says Russian soldiers arrived on the
morning of March 9 and, despite a white sheet hanging from the
family�s home to indicate there were no military targets. They
killed the family�s dog before gunning down Natalya�s husband a
few hours later.

�I heard a single shot, the sounds of the gate opening and then
the sound of footsteps in the house,� she was quoted telling the
Times. �I cried out, �Where is my husband?� then I looked
outside and I saw him on the ground by the gate. This younger
guy pulled gun to my head and said: �I shot your husband because
he�s a Nazi.��

After that, she said, things became only more harrowing. While
her son sat sheltering in a dark boiler room at the home, the
soldiers set their sights on her.

�[One of the Russian soldiers] said �You�d better shut up or
I�ll get your child and show him his mother�s brains spread
around the house,�� she said. �He told me to take my clothes
off. Then they both raped me one after the other. They didn�t
care that my son was in the boiler room crying. They told me to
go shut him up and come back. All the time they held the gun by
my head and taunted me, saying �How do you think she sucks it?
Shall we kill her or keep her alive?��

They brutalized her again less than a half hour later, she said,
but she and her son managed to flee when both the soldiers got
�so drunk� they passed out.

�While I was opening the gate, my son was standing next to his
father�s body but it was dark and he did not understand it was
his father. He said �Will we get shot the same as this man
here?�� she said.

Ukraine�s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, announced last
week that Ukrainian authorities had identified one of Natalya�s
rapists, and that a warrant was out for his arrest.

�We will find every villain and make him answer to the fullest
extent of the law,� Venediktova wrote on Facebook.

Natalya said the Russian commander who raped her had introduced
himself to her by name, and she later managed to track him down
on social media. There are unconfirmed rumors that he was
ultimately killed by Ukrainian forces, but, she said, �I still
do not know for sure if it is true.�

While Natalya�s story stands out because she was able to
identify one of her attackers, reports of rape by Russian
marauders have multiplied since the Kremlin launched its all-out
war against Ukraine on Feb. 24. Ukrainian Foreign Minister
Dmytro Kuleba has said he intends to bring such cases before the
International Criminal Court.

And while evidence of such war-time rapes is typically difficult
to collect, Ukrainian authorities say Russian troops have openly
talked about systemic rape in intercepted phone calls.

Ukraine�s Security Service released audio this past weekend of a
man it identifies as a Russian soldier telling a female
acquaintance about troops killing civilians and preying on women
in an occupied village.

�The guys in the neighboring village raped a grown woman and a
16-year-old girl,� he can be heard saying.

Authorities did not reveal where the Russian soldier captured in
the recording was based.

In another audio clip shared earlier this month by Anton
Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine�s interior minister, a man
identified as a Russian soldier laughingly tells a friend about
one of his comrades boasting about executing civilians and
committing rapes.

��And they will give me a medal for that,�� he recalled the
soldier joking.

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