Ukraine accused two Russian soldiers of sexually abusing a 4-year-old girl and gang-raping her mother at gunpoint in front of her father during the occupation in the Brovary District of Kyiv Oblast, Reuters reported, citing the materials of Ukraine's Prosecutor General’s Office.
The father was beaten with a metal pan, then forced to kneel and watch his wife being raped, according to the report. One of the soldiers told the four-year-old girl he would “make a woman out of her” before abusing her, the documents said. The family survived.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office, these incidents were part of a series of sexual crimes committed by Russian soldiers from the 15th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade in four houses in the Brovary District near the capital of Ukraine in March 2022.
Law enforcement officials say that after Russia’s failed attempt to capture Kyiv in February, a few days later, the Russian soldiers entered Brovary, looting and using sexual violence as a deliberate tactic to terrorize the population.
In total, six invaders are suspected in the attacks in the Brovary District.
According to the prosecutors cited by Reuters, the attack on the girl and her parents was carried out by two snipers. One of them, an unnamed 32-year-old soldier, died, according to the prosecutors. The other one, 28-year-old Yevhenii Chornoknyzhnyi, returned to Russia.
After the alleged attack on this family, the two soldiers entered the house of an elderly couple next door, where they allegedly beat them, according to the prosecutors. The two also allegedly raped a 41-year-old pregnant woman and a 17-year-old girl.
In another place where several families lived, Russian soldiers forced everyone into the kitchen, then allegedly raped a 15-year-old girl and her mother.
All the victims survived and are receiving psychological and medical assistance, according to the Prosecutor's Office, as Reuters reported.
The Prosecutor General’s Office is investigating more than 71,000 war crimes allegedly committed by Russian soldiers during the full-scale war against Ukraine.
Earlier on March 4, First Lady Olena Zelenska said at the United for Justice Conference in Lviv that the Prosecutor General’s Office had identified 171 victims of sexual violence by Russian troops.
According to Zelenska, 119 instances of sexual violence were reported against women, 39 against men, and 13 against minors.
