Amid Ukraine-Russia war, two teenage sisters were allegedly raped by Russian troops in a small village outside Kyiv.
The village, Ivankiv, is 50 miles north-west of Kyiv, and was reconnected to the rest of Ukraine, thanks to a bridge built by Ukrainian army engineers, reported Daily Mail. It was liberated on March 31, which was 35 days after it fell into the hands of Russian troops on Feb. 27. Since its liberation, horrendous stories of alleged war crimes have now emerged.
Ivankiv's deputy mayor Maryna Beschastna shared grim accounts of how Russian forces have treated women in the village, according to ITV. She said that there was a case in one village where two sisters, aged 15 and 16, were raped. She shared that women were "pulled by their hair out of their basements so that they could abuse them." So, girls started "cutting their hair short to be less attractive, so no one looks at them anymore," she added.
The stories are similar to the horrors of Bucha, where attacks on civilians by Russian forces do not "look far short of genocide," according to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Dozens of people have been found dead in the town after Russia's withdrawal, reported Express. As for women and children, they are said to have been raped under the watch of a Russian commander known as the "Butcher of Bucha." Lieutenant Colonel Azatbek Omurbekov is the commander of the 64th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, and the veteran soldier was recently blessed by the Orthodox Church. He is accused of orchestrating the rape, pillage and killings of hundreds of civilians in Ukraine.
Ukrainian defense minister Oleksiy Reznikov described the behavior of Russian troops in Bucha as "utterly inhuman" and compared them to Nazis. About 330 to 340 people have reportedly been killed in Bucha.
Express reported that Russian troops have been alleged to have raped a Ukrainian girl, 3, before dumping her body on top of her elder sister's corpse. Ukrainian ambassador to Estonia Mariana Betsa made the horrific claim, and said, "Russia should be accountable for the genocide of Ukrainians.”
In an address to the United Nations Security Council, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday accused Russia of committing the worst war crimes since World War II. He alleged that soldiers raped mothers in front of their kids.
