Russia Resorts to Rape as Military Strategy; If Cutthroats Can’t, They’re issued Viagra

A United Nations special envoy has accused Russia of using rape and sexual assault as part of its “military strategy” and “deliberate tactic to dehumanize the victims” in Moscow’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

We’ve been reading eyewitness accounts of this heinous crime against humanity ever since the Russian massacre in Bucha, north of Kyiv, in the early days of Moscow’s latest war against Ukraine. The testimonies about Russians raping girls, boys and women and then killing them sent shivers through people imbued with human feelings of compassion and revulsion.

While initially the news media and the UN classified the crimes as alleged, now they are out rightly accusing Russian uniformed cutthroats of committing such crimes and even declaring them acts of genocide.

Speaking to AFP, UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, backed her claims by citing a UN report released in late September.

The report released by a panel of UN experts recently verified “more than a hundred cases” of rape or sexual assault incidents in Ukraine since February—when Russia launched its invasion that was to have lasted 2-3 days.

Another alarming aspect of this criminal act is that it revealed that the Russians were ridiculously unprepared for war against Ukrainians. They ran out of food necessitating scrounging for sustenance just as they quickly depleted their stocks of fuel, ammunition, weapons and even fighters. But the most ludicrous shortage was apparently stamina so the Russian military command issued their soon-to-be-KIA combatants Viagra tablets.

Patten claimed that the number of victims is likely to be higher than official figures, saying that sexual crimes are often “under-reported.”

“When you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it’s clearly a military strategy,” Patten said in an interview with AFP on Thursday, October 13.

She said that the report verifies crimes against humanity committed by the Russian miscreants, and according to the collected testimonies, the age of the victims of sexual violence ranges from 4 to 82-year-old. “There are many cases of sexual violence against children who are raped, tortured and sequestered,” Patten said.

Her claims lend credibility to the repeated assertions made by Ukrainian politicians who spoke of numerous cases of sexual violence since Russia invaded Ukraine. In June, Kateryna Pavlichenko, Ukraine’s deputy minister of internal affairs, said that police received around 50 complaints of sexual crimes committed by Russian killers. Ukrainian officials are also investigating rape allegations in the Kharkiv region after Ukrainian forces recently recaptured the territory there.

I’m repeating this historical record for sake of the conclusion in the last line.

This monstrous crime has been condemned by the United Nations. “Sexual violence during conflict has proven highly effective in breaking the enemy's morale, particularly where women are raped in public, or where relatives are coerced into participating. Widespread and systematic sexual violence also hampers sustainable post-conflict recovery. It does so in at least three ways: first, it undermines social stability by destroying families and communities; second, the fear of sexual violence restrains women's mobility, leading them to retreat from economic activity, and causing girls to stay home from school; third, when perpetrators of sexual violence go unpunished, efforts to establish faith in the State's ability to protect its citizens and establish the rule of law, is seriously undermined.

“Security Council Resolutions 1820 and 1888 represent the UN commitment to addressing these issues. Resolution 1820 calls on parties to armed conflict, including non-State actors, to protect civilians from sexual violence, enforce military discipline, uphold command responsibility, and prosecute perpetrators.”

Concerned over the security of women and girls in situations of armed conflict, former United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that rape was a crime that could never be condoned; yet, women and girls around the world had been subjected to widespread and deliberate acts of sexual violence. Chairing in June 2008 a thematic debate of the Security Council on women, peace and security, Rice said “we affirm that sexual violence profoundly affects not only the health and safety of women, but also the economic and social stability of their nations.”

The resolution, introduced by Rice, was a mechanism for bringing these atrocities to light. It also set the stage for the Secretary-General to prepare an action plan for gathering information on the desperate acts of sexual violence in situations of armed conflict and in turn periodically report to the Security Council.

The resolution called upon several important measures to protect women, noting that rape and other forms of sexual violence could constitute a war crime, a crime against humanity, or a constitutive act with respect to genocide. It stressed the need for the exclusion of crimes of sexual violence from amnesty provisions in the context of conflict-resolution processes. The resolution also called upon Member States to comply with their obligations for prosecuting persons responsible for such acts. In addition, it urged the Secretary-General and his Special Envoys to invite women to participate in discussions pertinent to the prevention and resolution of conflict and the maintenance of peace and security.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1820 was unanimously adopted on June 19, 2008. It condemns the use of sexual violence as a tool of war, and declares that “rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide.”

Unanimously, means by all members, including the so-called Russian Federation. Moscow lies again.

Read a previous post on this topic:

Mama, Why … Why Me, Plead Little Ukrainian Girls and Boys

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