Police have opened 16 criminal cases of rape committed by Russians in Ukraine

Police have launched 16 criminal cases of rape committed by Russians. There are many more complaints about the occupiersʼ sexual crimes — the police check and document every fact.

This was stated by Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Kateryna Pavlichenko at the Ukraine-Ukrinform media center.

According to her, in the territories liberated from the occupation and in places of active hostilities, law enforcement officers, representatives of public organizations and the media recorded numerous cases of sexual violence by Russian servicemen.

"Currently, we have dozens of criminal proceedings on the facts of sexual violence committed by Russian servicemen against civilians. Only the police received about half a hundred complaints about sexual crimes of the occupiers in Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Kyiv, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv oblasts. Investigators have entered information on 16 of these facts into the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations, and information on others needs to be verified before we can initiate criminal proceedings," Pavlichenko said.

Police have confirmed information about the rape of underage girls, one of whom was pregnant at the time of the crime. There have also been confirmed cases of rape of elderly women. The investigation is ongoing.

Pavlichenko noted that the first results of the investigation of sexual crimes are already available, in particular, the suspects were informed about the suspicion in three proceedings.

The Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs stressed that there was no accurate information about such crimes. According to her, victims often do not want to tell about their experiences. Evidence is often lacking, and sometimes lacking at all, as the Russian occupiers "removed traces" by burning the bodies of tortured civilians.

• On May 30,the first case of rape during the war was brought to court. This was announced by Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova.