Editor’s Observe: This story incorporates graphic and disturbing descriptions of sexual violence.

Kyiv
CNN
 — 

Inside an hour of being arrested by Russian safety forces, Roman Shapovalenko was threatened with rape.

On August 25, 2022, the day after Ukraine’s Independence Day, he mentioned three armed, masked officers from Russia’s Federal Safety Service (FSB) stormed his house within the southern Ukrainian port metropolis of Kherson, which was occupied by Russian forces on the time.

They turned his home inside out trying to find incriminating proof. A message in Shapovalenko’s cellphone that known as Russian troopers “orcs” — a derisive reference to the evil forces in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Center-earth books and a preferred Ukrainian slur for the Russian military — was sufficient for them. He mentioned he was tied up, blindfolded and stuffed into an unmarked automobile.

For days after, Shapovalenko mentioned he was repeatedly electrocuted in his genital space, threatened with being raped with a glass bottle, and was even made to consider he might be sterilized.

“They appeared to have a fetish for genitalia. Generally the door would open, and they might say: ‘We’re going to take out our batons and we’re going to rape everybody right here,’” the 39-year-old farm supervisor informed CNN.

Describing the graphic element of his expertise matter-of-factly, Shapovalenko generally paused to chuckle nervously. He mentioned his humorousness helps with what he is aware of can be an extended restoration. The Russians, he mentioned, hated it. “I made somewhat joke, they usually didn’t prefer it. I acquired punched for that.”

Shapovalenko’s expertise of sexual violence by the hands of Russian forces is frequent amongst Ukrainians – together with civilians and troopers – who’ve been detained since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the nation greater than two years in the past.

Human rights screens have lengthy reported on the rampant use of sexual violence by Russian police and safety forces in opposition to prisoners and detainees in Russia. Now it appears Russia is exporting the apply to occupied Ukraine.

Few males have spoken publicly about their ordeal, however Ukrainian prosecutors and rights teams say male victims make up a rising proportion of circumstances. The crimes usually go unreported due to the stigma and disgrace related to them. The newest United Nations Safety Council annual report into conflict-related sexual violence mentioned that 85 circumstances had been documented in Ukraine in 2023 – affecting 52 males, 31 girls, one woman and one boy. A separate report from UN rights officers who interviewed 60 male Ukrainian prisoners of struggle following their launch discovered that 39 have been victims of sexual violence whereas in Russian detention.

CNN interviewed 4 male survivors, two in particular person and two by cellphone, and obtained testimonies from two extra, who have been held by Russian items throughout 5 Ukrainian areas which were occupied or annexed by Moscow: Kherson, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv and Crimea. All described being subjected to compelled nudity, genital electrocution – most frequently with wires from the Soviet-era miliary discipline phone TA-57, generally known as “Tapik” – and threats of rape.

Their accounts tallied with circumstances documented by regional prosecutors in Kyiv, Kherson and Kharkiv and have been corroborated by witnesses held in the identical detention amenities in Kharkiv and Kherson.

Taken collectively, their tales seize what prosecutors describe as Russia’s systematic and persevering with use of sexual violence in occupied areas as a part of its efforts to drive the Ukrainian folks into submission.

“We see it again and again in numerous areas below occupation. They use the identical methodology of committing sexual violence, the identical methodology of humiliation, the identical methodology of how they clarify it to their victims,” mentioned Anna Sosonska, a Ukrainian prosecutor and the performing chief of the conflict-related sexual violence division in Ukraine’s Workplace of the Prosecutor Normal.

Talking to CNN from her workplace in Kyiv, Sosonska mentioned {that a} vital variety of documented crimes of sexual violence by Russian troops, together with compelled nudity, genital mutilation, rape and compelled publicity to sexual violence in opposition to others, have been being carried out in opposition to males. “Particularly by utilizing electrical present on genitals – that’s the prime of the listing,” she mentioned.

Roman Chernenko mentioned he spent seven months in a “punishment cell” in a jail within the occupied metropolis of Olenivka, within the japanese Donetsk area, after he was captured by Russian troops in Mariupol space. The 29-year-old intelligence officer with the Ukrainian navy – who goes by the decision signal “Omen” – described being tortured as usually as 3 times a day, daily, for 4 months.

“Tapik is a navy cellphone with two wires. One is related to your balls, the opposite to your finger, they usually simply hold turning the present up,” he informed CNN. “They only hold twisting it till the particular person tells them what they want.”

He mentioned he believes officers from Russia’s GRU, the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) and the FSB, Russia’s predominant intelligence company, all took half within the torture.

Chernenko was launched as a part of a prisoner trade in January 2024 and remains to be recovering from the ordeal. Talking to CNN a couple of weeks after his launch, on the day he proposed to his girlfriend, he mentioned it was his ideas of her and his mom that gave him energy to outlive captivity.

“They laughed once they tortured me … they informed me that my mom was being f**ked by Chechens. They took me to be shot twice, they threatened me with rape,” he mentioned.

CNN requested Russia’s Ministry of Protection, Inside Ministry, FSB, Nationwide Guard (Rosgvardia) and the navy intelligence company, generally known as the GRU, for touch upon allegations of sexual violence at particular detention amenities, however has not obtained any response.

Rape and sexual violence are explicitly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions – the set of worldwide legal guidelines that regulate the conduct of armed battle – and might represent a struggle crime. Mock execution is taken into account a type of torture below worldwide legislation.

Underneath the Rome Statute of the Worldwide Legal Court docket (ICC), committing rape and sexual violence in a scientific or widespread manner is taken into account against the law in opposition to humanity.

In keeping with Ukrainian prosecutors investigating conflict-based sexual violence and abuse, all accessible proof signifies that it’s a deliberate tactic, a part of Russia’s modus operandi in Ukraine.

“It’s in each area that was below occupation. In all places that Russian troops have been positioned, we’re seeing circumstances of sexual violence and gender-based violence. The underside line is that it appears to be like like it’s Russian coverage,” Sosonska mentioned.

As of early Might, Ukraine has formally recorded 293 circumstances of sexual violence, though Sosonska mentioned that it’s inconceivable to estimate the actual variety of crimes which might be being dedicated, significantly in occupied territories which stay inaccessible to its investigators and prosecutors.

Some 37,000 Ukrainian residents are unaccounted for, based on the Ukrainian ombudsman’s workplace, with 1000’s believed to be held in Russian detention and vulnerable to torture and sexual violence.

However the actual scale of sexual violence dedicated through the struggle could by no means come to mild. Solely a fraction of victims have a tendency to come back ahead and, based on the UN, that is very true for males, a few of whom could not initially notice that what occurred to them was a sexual violence crime.

Some male victims of sexual violence could describe what occurred to them as an alternative as “torture.” The excellence, Sosonska defined, is necessary for any future court docket circumstances and struggle tribunals. Her workplace can also be attempting to teach the general public about the truth that males will be victims of sexual violence – one thing Sosonska mentioned should not be totally understood.

Anna Mykytenko, who heads the Ukraine group at World Rights Compliance (GRC), a world authorized non-profit, mentioned that Ukrainian witnesses and survivors of sexual violence have testified that Russian troops informed them it was a “punishment.”

“In a number of villages within the south we heard witnesses and survivors say that the Russian servicemen got here in, occupied the village, after which appeared particularly for the wives of Ukrainian troopers, or their moms or sisters,” Mykytenko informed CNN. GRC acts because the co-lead of the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group, an initiative launched by the European Union, america and the UK to offer Ukraine with help within the investigation and prosecution of atrocity crimes.

Mykytenko mentioned that whereas most circumstances of conflict-related sexual crimes that have been reported and investigated earlier within the struggle involved feminine victims, most of the circumstances lately recorded have been in opposition to male victims, particularly in opposition to males held in captivity.

“Sexual crimes are pretty frequent in detention facilities and it’s quite common for prisoners of struggle or civilians to be threatened with rape or with the sexual abuse of various varieties, that is one thing that’s virtually regular for the Russian and Russia-related armed forces,” she mentioned.

The Ukrainian ombudsman’s workplace informed CNN it believes that the Russian armed forces and Ministry of Protection, in addition to the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, are the Russian authorities our bodies formally chargeable for what occurs inside detention amenities.

Nevertheless, it’s Rosgvardia – a paramilitary police drive deployed to maintain order in occupied areas of Ukraine – and the FSB that seem like driving the marketing campaign of torture and sexual violence in opposition to the Ukrainian folks, based on the ombudsman and Ukraine’s navy intelligence service.

Because the begin of the full-scale invasion in 2022, the FSB has opened a number of regional places of work in occupied Ukraine to recruit brokers and collect intelligence. In keeping with an official organizational chart revealed on its web site, the FSB has directorates within the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk Individuals’s Republics, in Crimea and within the occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia areas.

A number of survivors in these areas informed CNN that the Russians who submitted them to sexual violence both recognized themselves or have been referred to by others as FSB officers.

In the meantime, members of Rosgvardia, a part of the Russian safety equipment that stories on to Russian President Vladimir Putin, are working alongside the Russian navy to detain activists, quash protests and unfold terror among the many civilian inhabitants in occupied areas.

The SBU, Ukraine’s safety service, has managed to trace down a number of Rosgvardia and FSB officers who it mentioned have been both the direct perpetrators or the enablers of sexual violence in opposition to folks held in detention.

The SBU and the Ukrainian regional prosecutor’s workplace in Kherson have recognized Aleksandr Naumenko, the deputy head of Rosgvardia in Russia’s Rostov area, as a suspect in additional than a dozen circumstances. Ukrainian authorities mentioned final Might he was chargeable for overseeing a detention facility in Kherson through the occupation and that he personally ordered sexual torture of a number of victims who have been electrocuted of their genital areas.

The discover of suspicion in opposition to Naumenko, a authorized doc seen by CNN, alleges that his subordinates and different members of Russian armed forces acted straight on his orders once they sexually abused a minimum of 17 victims.

Two different Rosgvardia officers – Oleksandr Chilengirov and Yehor Bondarenkov – have additionally been accused of torture, together with electrocuting a minimum of 24 victims of their genitals at a distinct detention facility in Kherson.

Dmitry Laikov, an officer with the FSB’s Division for the Protection of Constitutional Order and Combat in opposition to Terrorism, is accused of overseeing genital electrocution of a detained Ukrainian citizen in a police station within the occupied metropolis of Nova Kakhovka.

All 4 males have been indicted and their circumstances are presently being heard in court docket, based on Kherson prosecutors. Their whereabouts are unknown.

Ukrainian officers say that it’s tough, however not inconceivable, to trace down particular person perpetrators of sexual violence crimes. As of early Might, Ukrainian prosecutors had issued official notices of suspicion in opposition to 42 Russian officers, filed 19 indictments in opposition to 28 people and sentenced 5 folks. The entire trials happened in absentia, based on the prosecutors’ workplace.

Sosonska informed CNN a handful of circumstances are added to her file every month, and that investigations are progressing. Nevertheless, not one of the alleged perpetrators are in Ukrainian custody.

Oleksii Butenko, a prosecutor within the Kherson regional prosecutor’s workplace, mentioned he has little doubt that sexual violence was a part of Russia’s technique to subjugate the Ukrainian folks in Kherson and to “destroy the Ukrainian nationwide id.”

“We will communicate of a scientific strategy – 17 males have been recognized as having been sexually abused inside a single torture chamber,” he informed CNN. “We will say that the management, not solely the perpetrators but in addition the administration, is accountable – they gave permission or orders to commit these crimes.”

Andrii, a Kherson resident who was held in one of many Russian detention amenities, nonetheless remembers the screams of his fellow detainees greater than a yr and half after he was launched. “We have been stored within the basement of an workplace constructing. It was a small room with no furnishings, we slept on cardboard and used a bucket to go to the bathroom,” Andrii mentioned.

Talking to CNN in Kyiv, Andrii was clutching his fingers nervously, wanting away when describing what occurred throughout his time in detention. He requested for his title to be modified and that no identifiable details about him be revealed.

“I used to be the final one to be taken in for interrogation, so I may hear all of them being tortured within the subsequent room. I couldn’t hear the conversations, solely the screams and the moans. It was inconceivable to sleep due to these screams,” he mentioned, recalling one significantly horrifying incident. “I don’t know who this man was and what occurred to him … he was taken out into the hall, the place he was raped with a baton so that everybody may hear and see him.”

In keeping with Andrii, the threats of rape and genital electrocution have been the norm among the many Russian forces. “They loved it. They have been having enjoyable,” he mentioned.

Ukrainian prosecutors have recorded incidents of Russian officers raping or trying to rape victims utilizing objects together with batons, a pipe, a bottle, a deal with of a shovel, a stick and a pen.

Sosonska mentioned her workplace is set to convey to justice not simply the direct perpetrators, but in addition those that have been in cost – whether or not they ordered them or failed to stop them.

Her workplace is concentrated on prosecuting people, however it is usually gathering proof that can be shared with worldwide courts, together with the ICC, which prosecutes people over grave offenses corresponding to genocide and struggle crimes, and the Worldwide Court docket of Justice (ICJ), which hears circumstances introduced up in opposition to states.

The ICC has already issued an arrest warrant for Putin and Russia’s youngsters’s commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, over an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian youngsters to Russia. The Kremlin has denied the allegations and known as the ICC’s actions “outrageous.”

Sosonska mentioned she believes that, similar to the kid deportations, sexual violence is a part of what she known as “Russia’s genocidal marketing campaign” in opposition to Ukraine.

Oleksii Sivak knew the Russians have been coming for him after his neighbor Shapovalenko, the farm supervisor, was taken.

The 39-year-old sailor from Kherson had helped him put up Ukrainian flags round their neighborhood on Ukrainian Independence Day.

Each males have been civilian volunteers. Shapovalenko had been distributing provides, serving to folks evacuate and sharing details about the placement of Russian troops with Ukrainian navy acquaintances, whereas Sivak ran a soup kitchen, organizing help, distributing leaflets and placing up posters and flags.

“We already knew about these torture rooms; we knew that folks don’t return from there. I went to ship soup, warned the folks I used to be serving to, reduce off all contacts and got here house to attend for them,” he mentioned. Hiding or attempting to go on the run was not an choice, he added, saying he was conscious Russian forces have been focusing on the family members of individuals they have been all in favour of.

He mentioned eight males got here to arrest him – 4 in navy uniforms and 4 carrying civilian garments, all with their faces coated. They took him to an area police station after which handed him over to what they mentioned was the FSB.

He recalled being crushed and tortured with an electrical present from the identical form of discipline phone described as being utilized in different detention amenities. “They known as it ‘the lie detector’ they usually have been clearly having enjoyable when spinning the dynamo, asking me ‘do you need to name Zelensky?’” he informed CNN in an interview in Kyiv.

“First, they put the clamps on my ears and whereas they have been stunning me, they have been additionally beating me with a stick, kicking me, and hitting me with their fingers … then they moved these wires from my ears to my genitals. They mentioned, ‘we’re going to sterilize you now’ and issues like that, whereas they have been electrocuting my genitals.” Sivak believes he has a fairly good thought why the Russian troops selected to torture him in the way in which they did and threatened him with rape.

“They needed to humiliate me. It’s apparent. What do you do to trigger a person probably the most ache? You damage his spouse or his genitals,” he mentioned.

Of the handfuls of males he was held with, Sivak mentioned roughly half have been subjected to sexual violence. “It’s an entire system. 4 folks (tortured me) however they have been simply the hatchet males. Sure, they haven’t any brains, sure, they’re animals, however even when they’re imprisoned, what about their bosses? Somebody was managing them; somebody was giving them orders.”

Sivak mentioned he and several other different survivors have shaped an off-the-cuff help group and try to lift consciousness of the truth that males will be victims of sexual violence. Sivak has attended conferences with authorities officers and conferences the place he shared his experiences.

Ukraine is ready for a prolonged course of to convey perpetrators to justice – whereas defending the victims. Because the starting of the full-scale struggle, Sosonska’s prosecutors, in addition to different civil servants and native authorities officers, have obtained specialised coaching on victim-oriented approaches, studying tips on how to acknowledge conflict-related sexual violence, run investigations and talk with victims.

A few of the coaching applications have been supplied by the UN in a direct response to the big variety of sexual crimes occurring through the occupation. Others are run in cooperation with native non-governmental organizations and sufferer help teams. The UN has additionally co-sponsored a psychological helpline particularly geared toward male survivors.

It will possibly take years and even longer for courts to rule and victims to talk out. Some survivors of sexual violence dedicated by the Bosnian Serb military through the Bosnian struggle within the early Nineteen Nineties are solely now coming ahead.

“Some survivors is likely to be keen to testify inside a couple of months, for some, it might by no means occur, they could by no means be prepared,” Sosonska mentioned.

As for Shapovalenko, he mentioned he needed everybody to know what occurred to him – and what’s nonetheless occurring to others.

“I need to inform everybody, inform the worldwide neighborhood, that it isn’t like they got here, occupied us, stood there with machine weapons and left. No, it wasn’t like that,” he mentioned. “And probably the most horrible factor isn’t what I’m telling you now. Essentially the most horrible factor is that it’s occurring now within the occupied territories.”