The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), led by Austrian Volker Türk, has documented more than a thousand cases (1,004) of sexual violence committed since the start of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Rapes, individual or group; genital mutilation; sexual assault; electric shocks and blows to sexual organs; forced nudity… 89% of these crimes (892) were perpetrated by the Russian side; the rest (112), by the Ukrainian side. The account of these abuses is part of the report Sexual violence in the context of the large-scale armed attack by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, published this Friday by the OHCHR.
One of the most atrocious accounts tells the following: the Russian army captures a group of Ukrainian soldiers in September 2023. They thus become prisoners of war protected by the Geneva Convention. They order four of them to undress; film the group sitting in a trench and publish the video. One of the Russian soldiers interrogates them. Not satisfied with the answer of one of them, he tortures him in the presence of the others, using various methods and instruments, including sexual violence. He burns his buttocks and inserts a weapon into his anus to then open fire. The prisoner is finally executed.
Each and every one of these actions, from forced nudity to the publication of a video of the prisoners, the type of interrogation and, undoubtedly, the summary execution, violate the laws of war agreed upon after World War II. The OHCHR points out that behind the 892 cases of sexual violence by Russian forces (whose victims are 725 men, 151 women, 14 girls, and two boys) are the military sent by Moscow to carry out the major offensive against Ukraine; the intelligence services (FSB) and prison officials (FSIN). Their victims: captured military and medical personnel, as well as civilians in areas occupied by the invading army.
The litany of methods used by the Russian side to exert sexual violence against Ukrainian military and civilians, either during interrogations or periods of captivity, is long: rape, attempted rape, genital mutilation, sexual assault, electric shocks and blows to sexual organs, forced nudity, electric shocks or assaults on the naked body, degrading treatment and threats of sexual violence, among others.
The department led by Türk clarifies that the figures in its report correspond to the sum of those interviewed who agreed to have their cases used publicly. The OHCHR has verified other episodes of sexual violence not included in the report. It is estimated that Moscow still holds about 7,000 Ukrainian soldiers prisoner, compared to 4,000 held by Kyiv.
In another case included in the United Nations investigation, a Ukrainian prisoner of war recounts after his release how he was assaulted in one of the Russian detention facilities between October 2022 and April 2024. During interrogations, the soldier was beaten in the genitals with batons and fists. On one occasion, one of his tormentors kicked him with particular force in the sexual organs while shouting that he did it so he would not have children —“creatures like him”—, according to the report.
Read more Chess analysis | Sindárov shines at home
Multiple assaults
In 75% of the cases, Russian forces or officials use several types of sexual violence on the same victims. This is narrated by a Ukrainian military doctor who counts seven different forms of assault he suffered during just one year of captivity. Russian prison officials subjected him to an attempted rape, as well as repeated episodes of forced nudity, blows to the genitals, and sexually degrading treatment. The worst came before his release in 2023. Six employees raped him with a police baton. He bled for more than a week.
The use of a baton, sometimes electrified, is a constant in the accounts of abuses given by released prisoners of war — each side has sent home about 10,000 captive soldiers. In an interview with EL PAÍS in September 2025, Ukrainian activist, journalist, and soldier Maksim Butkevich recounted how during his more than two years as a prisoner in the occupied east and Russian Federation territory, he suffered threats of rape with an electrified stick. It did not happen, although he did hear his jailers mention this type of abuse.
The OHCHR also documents cases of sexual violence committed by Ukrainian forces in territory under their control by the armed forces, the intelligence service (SBU), prison officials, and the national police. Of the 112 cases, 98 have men as victims, and 14 women. There is no evidence, based on testimonies from Russian and foreign prisoners of war interviewed, that the Ukrainian side committed any rape, although there were threats.
Among the examples of abuses by Kyiv forces, the report recounts how, in August 2023, shortly after his capture, members of the armed forces detained a Russian prisoner in a basement and beat him while he was blindfolded and naked. A month later, during an interrogation, a member of the SBU threatened to lock him in a cell with men he described as “homosexuals.” There, he said, the prisoner would be a victim of rape.
