Rape as a weapon: huge scale of sexual violence endured in Ukraine emerges

Women and girls have recounted the abuse they have suffered at the hands of Russian soldiers

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

Women across Ukraine are grappling with the threat of rape as a weapon of war as growing evidence of sexual violence emerges from areas retaken from retreating Russian forces.

The world was horrified on Sunday by a picture taken by the photographer Mikhail Palinchak on a highway 20km outside the capital, Kyiv, in which the bodies of one man and three women were piled under a blanket. The women were naked and their bodies had been partially burned, the photographer said.