New Delhi: A Ukrainian Member of Parliament has said Russian soldiers were raping and assaulting women in her country and that Ukraine would not be silent about these crimes.
MP Maria Mezentseva on Sunday took the reference of one woman in Brovary, who had been raped in front of her child.
Earlier last week, Ukraine began an investigation into the incident, the first, warning Russia that they had issued an arrest warrant for the soldier.
MP Inna Sovsun had tweeted: “Prosecutor General of Ukraine opened the first official investigation of the rape of a #Ukrainian woman in Brovary district committed by the #russian soldier. We heard rumours earlier, but this is the first time confirmed by the official complaints made by the surviving woman.”
Speaking of this incident, Mezentseva told Sky News: “There is one case which was very widely discussed recently because it’s been recorded and proceeded with [by] the prosecutor’s office, and we’re not going into details, but it’s quite a scary scene when a civilian was shot dead in his house in a small town next to Kyiv.”
“His wife was – I’m sorry but I have to say it – raped several times in front of her underage child,” she told the interviewer. The soldier is believed to have threatened the child after the assault on his mother.
Mezentseva feared that cases were being underreported. They need to be reported, she said, as “justice has to prevail”.
“…we are dealing with right now, the aftermath of war, has to be taken very cautiously, very seriously…,” she added.
Women MPs have earlier raised the issue of assault of captive Ukrainian women, mostly the elderly who are unable to get out, being executed after rape. Some may have also committed suicide, they said.
Rape and sexual assault are war crimes, considered a violation of international humanitarian law.
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