NP

[Mark Kohut]

What's happening in Ukraine

Two months into the war, much remains to be investigated and confirmed
about the prevalence of sexual assaults in Ukraine. NPR has been unable to
independently verify individual accounts. But in an interview with Morning
Edition
<https://www.npr.org/2022/04/28/1095277848/ukraine-russia-war-crimes>,
Matilda Bogner, the head of a United Nations team documenting possible
human rights abuses in Ukraine, says she has received "dozens" of
allegations.

"It is difficult to fully confirm sexual violence because it's often the
type of case where victims don't want to speak publicly, and they're often
not in safe areas where it feels safe for them to speak out, or where they
have received the services that they need," she said.

Organizations such as the United Nations
<https://www.un.org/press/en/2022/sc14857.doc.htm>, Human Rights Watch
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/03/ukraine-apparent-war-crimes-russia-controlled-areas#>
 and La Strada Ukraine
<https://www.lastradainternational.org/la-strada-ukraine/> have begun to
document sexual violence in Ukraine. So, too, have Ukrainian officials.

"The cases we documented amount to unspeakable, deliberate cruelty and
violence against Ukrainian civilians," said Hugh Williamson, Europe and
Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, in a report earlier this
month. "Rape, murder, and other violent acts against people in the Russian
forces' custody should be investigated as war crimes."

Russia has denied allegations of rape and other atrocities by its soldiers
in Ukraine. "It is a lie," Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said in response
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/world/europe/russian-soldiers-sexual-violence-ukraine.html>to
one Ukrainian woman's account of Russian soldiers shooting her husband dead
then raping her repeatedly.

But Dara Kay Cohen, a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy
School and author of the book Rape During Civil War, says she's watching
what's happening in Ukraine with "a great deal of trepidation, worry and
horror." From the accounts that are public, she has noticed some disturbing
trends.

"One of them is reports of gang rape, which is actually very common in
wartime," she tells NPR. "In fact, gang rape in particular is by far the
most widely reported form of rape during periods of conflict. And that's in
stark contrast to peacetime, where gang rape is relatively rare, even in
places where we know rape to be quite common."

Another disturbing trend she has noticed is a lack of any attempt to hide
such crimes. In some conflicts, she says, perpetrators will attempt to bury
the evidence, perhaps by killing the victims or witnesses. While
information remains limited, Cohen says this brazenness by Russian soldiers
suggests to her that commanders are, at a minimum, "aware of what's
happening."

"It doesn't suggest ... individual soldiers going off to engage in
opportunistic sexual violence. It suggests something that is at the very
least being tolerated by the command, if not ordered," she says.

------
[image: As Ukraine investigates Russian war crimes, the U.S. and EU allies
offer assistance]
<https://www.npr.org/2022/04/15/1093119884/as-ukraine-investigates-russian-war-crimes-the-u-s-and-eu-allies-offer-assistanc>
POLITICS  <https://www.npr.org/sections/politics/>As Ukraine investigates
Russian war crimes, the U.S. and EU allies offer assistance
<https://www.npr.org/2022/04/15/1093119884/as-ukraine-investigates-russian-war-crimes-the-u-s-and-eu-allies-offer-assistanc>

The atrocities in Bucha are "genocide wrapped in gender-based sexual
violence," wrote
<https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/ukraine-russia-war-crimes-spotlight-soldier-rape-strategy-rcna25903>Sharon
Block, a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine. "The
soldiers could have killed the women and girls to prevent reproduction. But
they chose to inflict sexual harm as a sign of their power."

Russian officials have claimed that the country's military operation in
Ukraine is being distorted and that the atrocities in Ukraine have been
"staged" by Ukrainian forces to be circulated by Western media.
Rape is not common in all conflicts

Mia Bloom, a professor at Georgia State University and an international
security fellow at the think tank New America, says it's important to
understand that although rape is a war crime, it is not something that is
present in all wars.



On Fri, Jun 10, 2022 at 10:57 PM Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com> wrote:

> I took you to imply that the New York Times has reported that Russia has
> used mass rape as a weapon of war, although perhaps I misunderstood you.
> Curious, I searched the Times. The only articles I see note allegations of
> multiple rapes, but do not suggest they are fact, and also note allegations
> about similar conduct by Ukraine. FWIW.
>
> Sent from an iPhone; pls xcse typos.
>
> > On Jun 10, 2022, at 3:25 PM, Thomas Eckhardt via Pynchon-l <
> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
> >
> > For those who get their information from Twitter:
> >
> > The claim that Russian troops committed rapes of women and children "as
> a weapon of war" has been debunked. The human rights commissioner
> responsible for these claims has been relieved from her duties:
> >
> > "The top Ukrainian official who was fired for spreading misinformation
> has admitted that she lied about Russians committing mass rape in order to
> convince western countries to send more weapons to Ukraine."
> >
> >
> https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ousted-ukrainian-official-breaks-silence-admits-she-lied-about-mass-rape-russians?fbclid=IwAR2zCEO5-Fq05ERpMUHkSqkb-b2JMs5xJ0mrWbgS1hYLTOl2yzEIge-WgBk
> >
> > Don't tell me that Zerohedge provides "Russian misinformation" - tell me
> that they are wrong, and prove it.
> >
> > Horrible things happen in war, and I don't doubt that there are
> atrocities happening on both sides of the conflict. This claim, however,
> was false. It was atrocity propaganda of the most blatant kind. Kudos to
> the Ukrainian parliament for insisting on factual evidence.
> >
> > No, you won't read this in the NYT or the WP.
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>