Russian soldiers supplied with Viagra to rape Ukrainians: UN

The rapes and sexual assaults attributed to Russian forces in Ukraine clearly constitute "a military strategy" and a "deliberate tactic to dehumanize victims", estimates the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten.

"All the signs are there," Patten said in an interview with AFP in Paris, where he signed an agreement on Thursday with the NGO Libraries Without Borders to support victims of sexual assault during conflicts.

A United Nations official, the British-Mauritanian lawyer Pramila Patten, has been in charge of transmitting the tragic testimonies that are reaching her from Ukraine. Patten, who serves as the UN Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflict, claims to have evidence that Russian soldiers carry Viagra with them in order to commit more rapes against Ukrainian women.

As detailed, they are "deliberate tactics" that would be premeditated, to use sexual violence as a technique of war and thus be able to cause greater pain to civilian women who do not have the opportunity to defend themselves: "When you hear women testify that Russian soldiers are going equipped with viagra, that clearly responds to a military strategy ". Some Ukrainian women once claimed that the Russians had raped them so that "they would never have Ukrainian children."

The first cases of rape and sexual assault emerged "three days after the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine", on February 24, and since then the UN has verified "more than a hundred", but those reported "are only the tip of the iceberg," she says.

"It is very difficult to have reliable statistics during an active conflict and the figures will never reflect reality since sexual violence is a silent crime, the least reported and the least condemned," explains Patten, who highlighted the fear of reprisals and stigmatization.

The victims are mainly women and girls, indicates the UN official.

A report at the end of September by an independent international investigation commission, created at the request of the Security Council, "confirmed crimes against humanity perpetrated by Russian forces," she recalls.

Rape as a weapon of war exists in all conflicts, from Bosnia to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but Patten sees the war in Ukraine as an international "awareness".

The victims are primarily women, he said, but also include men and children.

Last month, UN investigators concluded in a report that Russian troops have raped children, some as young as four.

Last week, a Ukrainian woman told The Washington Post that she was raped and tortured by Russian soldiers in Izium. Alla, 52, gave a detailed account of the 10 days she and her husband were held captive.

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