Rape as a weapon: huge scale of sexual violence inflicted in Ukraine emerges

Women across Ukraine are grappling with the threat of rape as a weapon of war as growing evidence of sexual violence emerges from areas retaken from retreating Russian forces.

The world was horrified on Sunday by a picture taken by the photographer Mikhail Palinchak on a highway 20km outside the capital, Kyiv, in which the bodies of one man and three women were piled under a blanket. The women were naked and their bodies had been partially burned, the photographer said.

The harrowing image adds to a mounting body of evidence that summary executions, rape and torture have been used against civilians in areas under Russian control since the Kremlin launched the invasion of its neighbour on 24 February.

Antonina Medvedchuk, 31, said that when she woke up to the sound of bombing on the day the war broke out, the first things she grabbed before leaving Kyiv were condoms and scissors to use as a weapon to protect herself.

It is not only Russian soldiers Ukrainian women may have to protect themselves from. In Vinnytsia, a town in the west of the country, a teacher reported to police that a member of the territorial defence services dragged her into the school library and tried to rape her. The man was arrested.

Organisations such as La Strada Ukraine and a countrywide network called Feminist Workshop have been working online and with local government to distribute information about medical, legal and psychological support available for victims of sexual assault, and are trying to find safe shelters for women and girls fleeing both the war and domestic violence.

They fear, however, that the trauma caused by the use of rape as a military tactic will lead to deep suffering across Ukrainian society for years to come.