As reports of rape by Russian soldiers pour in, a famous Ukrainian appeals to victims: come forward and ‘let us punish these scum’

Reports of Ukrainian women and girls being raped by Russian soldiers are increasingly emerging from the war zone.

The scope of the violence remains difficult to ascertain amid Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, but a Ukrainian media personality is encouraging women to come forward with their stories, as officials work to confirm what is happening.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirmed Sunday a case of repeated rape of a woman by a Russian soldier on March 13 at a school in the Kharkiv region, where she and her family had been sheltering. She said that he beat her and cut her face, neck and hair with a knife," HRW reported.

Last week, a Ukrainian MP, Maria Mezentseva, alerted the world to sexual war crimes by Russians, raising a case in Brovary, an eastern suburb of Kyiv, where a woman was said to have been raped by two soldiers in front of her child after her husband was shot dead. A Kremlin spokesperson has denied that the woman was raped by soldiers in an interview with reporters in Moscow.

Masha Efrosinina, a Ukrainian TV presenter and Honorary United Nations Ambassador for Population Issues, is working with the Ukrainian National Police to help rape victims come forward. She appealed to Ukrainian women on Instagram last week to report sexual assaults to authorities.

In an interview with the Star over WhatsApp, translated for the Star by Ukrainian activist Olga Tchetvertnykh, Efrosinina said she has been told dozens of stories of sexual assault and rape by her two million followers.

Efrosinina said she received messages from Kherson about a rape of 11 Ukrainian women by Russian occupiers. Only six of the women survived, according to witnesses, Efrosinina said. But these are just stories," she said, they need an official investigation."

In her Instagram appeal, Efrosinina explains to rape victims that they must come forward to authorities in order for the crimes to be prosecuted.

I know that you have lost your loved ones, men, parents. I know that all you want now is to die. I beg you, I beg you, let us punish these scum ... You need to report what has been done. It is very difficult, but it must be done."

Efrosinina said Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs, Denys Monastyrskiy, told her that calls from victims to their hotline have increased since her post, but that the next steps are challenging.

Some women are forced by their mothers to make the call, then throw away their phones or refuse followup contact, Efrosinina said. Some are suicidal, in no condition to speak, or sheltering in a basement from Russian bombing.

The prosecutor general of Ukraine is beginning to investigate Russian war crimes including rapes, according to officials, but details have not been shared.

Pictures of partially burned naked female corpses, meanwhile, have led Ukrainian officials to say that countless other sexual assaults are going unreported.

Rape and other forms of sexual violence by Russian soldiers have been confirmed in other conflicts. Several international organizations reported gang rapes and rapes of women and children by Russian soldiers in Chechnya in 2000-2002. Amnesty International detailed two cases of Russians gang-raping heavily pregnant Chechen women; one gave birth while being raped and the other suffered a miscarriage.

More recently the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported rape by Russian forces against detainees in eastern Ukraine. The 2014 UNHCR report counts 340 victims of sexual violence, including rape, forced nudity and violence to the genitals." The report notes that the number of individuals brought to responsibility for these violations are small."

Tatyana Donets, a former Ukrainian member of Parliament who helped victims of the 2014 violence in Eastern Ukraine, told the Star in another interview translated by Tchetvertnykh that the world was blind to the Russian violence against women in 2014."

Donets, who came under Russian sanctions in 2018 for her advocacy, said technology makes it easier now to track down perpetrators of rape. The world needs to let these animals know that they will be found and face justice," she said. We don't want to put another candle in the church like we are doing for Bucha."

Efrosinina struggled through tears as she shares her fears for her country. Her husband is defending Kyiv and her seven-year-old son asks every day whether his father is still alive. She worries that many Ukrainian women who have disappeared or who are surviving in occupied areas are in grave danger.

As other territories are liberated from Russia, we will find more and more cases of rape, Efrosinina said. Seven cities are absolutely blocked and absolutely occupied. We don't know what's going on there."

Woman struggle to report sexual assault even in peacetime, but in war, it's impossible," Efrosinina said. I cannot imagine their trauma."

I need to do everything I can to help these women."

Katharine Lake Berz is a consultant and writer on Vancouver Island and in Toronto. Olga Tchetvertnykh, who arranged and translated interviews, is a Ukrainian-Canadian activist in Toronto.