Putin beordrar styrkor att gå in i Ukraina - INVASION NU (2022-02-24)

Survivors say Russia is waging a war of sexual violence in occupied areas of Ukraine. Men are often the victims.

For days after, Shapovalenko said he was repeatedly electrocuted in his genital area, threatened with being raped with a glass bottle, and was even made to believe he could be sterilized.

“They seemed to have a fetish for genitalia. Sometimes the door would open, and they would say: ‘We’re going to take out our batons and we’re going to rape everyone here,’” the 39-year-old farm manager told CNN.

Describing the graphic detail of his experience matter-of-factly, Shapovalenko sometimes paused to laugh nervously. He said his sense of humor is helping with what he knows will be a long recovery. The Russians, he said, hated it. “I made a little joke, and they didn’t like it. I got punched for that.”

Shapovalenko’s experience of sexual violence at the hands of Russian forces is common among Ukrainians – including civilians and soldiers – who have been detained since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country more than two years ago.

Human rights monitors have long reported on the rampant use of sexual violence by Russian police and security forces against prisoners and detainees in Russia. Now it seems Russia is exporting the practice to occupied Ukraine.