'Abhorrent acts' - Russian forces committed widespread sexual violence in Ukraine since full-scale invasion, UN reports

Russian forces are responsible for the vast majority of sexual violence in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale war, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) announced in a report on Sept. 18.

“I am deeply alarmed by the prevalence of these abhorrent acts documented in our report, and fear that they are almost certainly continuing amid the unceasing violence we are witnessing every day in Ukraine,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said regarding the findings.

According to the report, out of the 1,004 verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence between February 2022 and July 2026 against civilians and prisoners of war (POWs), 89% were attributed to Russian forces. 11% of total verified cases were attributed to Ukrainian forces, with threats of sexual violence comprising almost half of these violations.

"Sexual violence is a grave feature of the full-scale armed attack against Ukraine. It must stop immediately, irrespective of the perpetrators," Turk said in a press release. "Given the high prevalence of cases attributed to its forces, however, the Russian Federation in particular must take concrete and discernible steps to protect civilians and prisoners of war from all forms of torture, including sexual violence.”

The 20-page report is based on interviews with hundreds of survivors of sexual violence, court documents, official records, and findings of OHCHR’s Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. The report acknowledges that the findings are not comprehensive, given that sexual violence may be underreported, and because Russia has not granted OHCHR access to Ukrainian territory it currently occupies.

Russian forces subjected Ukrainian POWs and civilians in captivity to sexual violence in a pattern of torture, intimidation, and coercion, the report says. The majority of victims were men. Women and children, primarily in Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces, also fell victim to rapes and sexual assault. The youngest documented rape survivor was a four-year-old girl, and the oldest was an 82-year-old woman, with both cases perpetrated by Russian forces.

Violations detailed in the report include rape, gang rape, genital mutilation, electric shocks, beating to the genitals, and degrading acts.

In a common form of torture against Ukrainian POWs detailed in the report, Russian forces electrocuted men's genitals using tasers or a Soviet-era military field telephone known as a 'tapik.' 155 Ukrainian POWs reported enduring this torture at least once.

Ukrainian women featured in the report describe being raped by Russian soldiers under the threat of being killed, or having their family tortured or killed.

The report also found instances of Ukrainian forces subjecting Russian POWs to forced nudity, electric shocks, beatings to the genitals, sexually degrading treatment, as well as two sexual assaults and two cases of attempted rape.

The report's summary noted that while the Ukrainian government has taken "concrete steps to prevent and address such violations," Russia has failed to do the same.