Russian soldiers are increasingly raping Ukrainian men during the occupation

Sexual violence in the occupied territories has become a common practice for the Russian military. Not only women, but also men often become victims.

CNN came to this conclusion based on reports from international organizations and interviews with Ukrainian prosecutors and men who experienced such violence.

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine recorded 85 cases of war-related sexual violence. These crimes were committed both against civilians and prisoners of war. In particular, the victims were 52 men, 31 women, one girl and one boy.

A separate report by UN human rights activists who interviewed 60 Ukrainian male prisoners of war after their release found that 39 of them had been victims of sexual violence in Russian captivity.

In Russia itself, sexual violence is used en masse by the police and security forces, and this practice is exported to the occupied territories of Ukraine, human rights activists claim.

CNN cites the testimony of men (both civilians and military) who were held by the Russians in Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson and in the occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv region.

All of them said they were forcibly stripped, tortured with electric currents – most often with wires from a Soviet-era TA-57 military field telephone known as the Tapik – and threatened with rape.

Their stories coincide with the cases recorded by the regional prosecutor’s offices of Kyiv, Kherson and Kharkiv, and are confirmed by the testimonies of people who were held in the same places of deprivation of liberty in the occupied territories.

All this, according to prosecutors, is part of a tactic aimed at forcing the Ukrainian people into submission.

“We see this again and again in every region under occupation. Wherever Russian troops have been, we find facts of sexual and gender-based violence… This looks like a deliberate policy of Russia,” says the head of the Directorate for Combating Sexual Violence Crimes, associated with the war, the Office of the Prosecutor General Anna Sosonska.

According to her, a significant number of documented sexual crimes, including forced nudity, genital mutilation, and rape, were committed against men.

“Especially with the use of electric current on the genitals. This tops the list,” the prosecutor points out.