Men scattered throughout Ukraine are helping one another recover from sexual trauma inflicted by Russian troops. These are some of their stories.
Warning: This story discusses sexual violence.
…
UN: More than half of Ukrainian sexual violence victims are male
Overwhelming evidence suggests Russia has weaponised sexual violence — such as rape, genital mutilation, forced stripping and other means of torture — against men and boys in Ukraine over the past two years. Under international law, these constitute war crimes.
The latest United Nations Security Council report into conflict-related sexual violence states the investigatory body has documented 263 cases perpetrated by Russian armed forces, law enforcement authorities and penitentiary services against civilians and prisoners of war in Ukraine since the 2022 full-scale invasion. Over half of these victims are male (163); 83 are female. 10 are underage girls, and two are boys.
Remember what you know to be true about this and Bucha when tankies try to claim this genocide is being fabricated by the west.
Thats not even the half of it. I remember reading back in 2022 about a month after the war started that a group of 5 russian soldiers fucked an infant girl to death. When I say infant, I mean like 3 months old, and FIVE DIFFERENT RUSSIAN SOLDIERS decided “Yeah, this human thats barely more than a fetus is what I feel like having sex with”.
Now the article didn’t go into when exactly the infant died, but I have to imagine it was fairly early. Which, again, I haven’t read this part as fact, but an educated guess would imply that 4 of those soldiers not only fucked an infant girl, but a DEAD infant at that!
At the time I read that, I thought “Theres no way these actions were official military actions with orders from above”. Meaning these were the actions of 5 sick fucks, and not representitive of the military orders given by the chain of command.
Now, I kind of think theres a decent chance it was. I’m more leaning into the idea of that command DID come from above. I haven’t read that, but gut feeling with erything else that’s happened says it probably did.
This war has been gross, and the more I look into it, the more horrifying things I learn about war in general as it pertains to rape and suffering.
Ok so let me get this straight. The russians capture men and women and rape them? Is not Russia one of the biggest homophobic countries on earth? I bet it is ok if they are prisoners but if your caught scissoring with a woman or getting fucked by a man who gives a reach around in both of their leisure time is illegal? Russia makes no sense sometimes and they contradict themselves all the time.
It’s like how the right wing in America is incredibly homophobic yet keeps getting caught having gay sex in bathrooms. It’s all projection.
The thing is that these populist politicians are do not have most of the views they are communicating. Many of them might even have very liberal and modern world views. However, the main goal for them is to gain as much power for themselves and their cronies. To achieve that they simply say what their supporters want to hear. The statements of populist are not the statements they believe in, they are the direct reflection of their supporters beliefs.
The person who pointed out that it’s about power has it in one, but if you’d like to learn more about war rape’s use in modern conflicts, Our Bodies Their Battlefield: What War Does to Women by Christina Lamb is an excellent introduction. Despite the title, it does touch on male rape as well, and it gives a comprehensive overview of the ways rape is used as a weapon, as well as the ways survivors recover from it.
(Note: I wish there were more research on the subject for laypeople, focusing on the use of war rape with men, since it shows up throughout conflicts as well - but Lamb’s book was a first. It’s a very recent title, and my hope is that other brave writers will put together more books on the subject.)
