One of the soldiers, who Dasha said was drunk, began asking how many rooms were in the house and the ages of the children. What followed is an incident that Ukrainian prosecutors say is a war crime. While unbridled violence around Kyiv has embodied the pointless brutality of Russia’s attack on civilians, dark and untold stories of their barbarity in tiny, remote villages, such as Dasha, in Ukraine’s southern Khersa region, are emerging. These stories help to create a motif of a Russian army, which is affected by criminal behavior and, in this case, by the alleged attack of a minor on its most vulnerable part. Dasha said that when the children, a 12- and 14-year-old girl, saw the soldiers in their kitchen, they were startled. “First, he (the drunken soldier) called my mother to another room. He let her go quickly. Then he called me,” he said. “When I came in, he first told me how he saved two people in our village – a mother with two children,” he said. But then the soldier, whom Dasha later learned was from Donetsk and called “Blue” by other soldiers, became violent. “He started shouting, telling me to undress first. I told him I would not do it, and (he) started yelling at me. And he said if I did not undress he would kill me,” he told CNN. At that point, the other soldier entered the room and warned Blue that he would have trouble with the rest of the unit if he followed his obvious plan. Blue did not seem to be bothered by the warning, Dasha said, and his colleague left, telling him to return to the unit in 30 minutes. “When I resisted, she strangled me and said she was going to kill me. Then she threatened me unceasingly, he said, telling her, ‘Either sleep with me now or I will bring another 20 people.’ Dasha’s story was interrupted by her crying. Her mother sat next to her as she spoke, also visibly upset. “I just remember he had blue eyes and it was dark there, and I did not remember anything,” he said. Dasha said that after her rape, her perpetrator tried to attack her again several times until two Russian snipers intervened to help her, leading her and her family to another house. CNN does not identify victims of sexual assault and in this case refers to Dasha under a pseudonym. There, she was told that Blue had been killed, she said. Dasha later learned that it was a lie when she was called by a Russian paratrooper commander to a nearby village to discuss her attack. But it was not a discussion, he said. On the contrary, it was a terrifying interrogation. “He (the commander) used some kind of psychological tactic,” Dasha said. “He started saying the same things the rapist had told me, screaming at me and (saying that) he would do the same as the rapist did. I was so scared and I started crying.” After being upset, Dasha said that the commander decided that he was telling the truth. It is not clear what happened to Blue. Dasha had heard other Russian soldiers say that her perpetrator had a “criminal past”. He believes he was looking for a goal. “We were told he was going around the village,” Dasha said, “and he was looking for someone who could … ‘a girl with easy virtue,’ as they said.” CNN contacted the Russian Ministry of Defense for comments. About a week after the alleged attack, the Russians left her village. A report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) released on 13 April found violations of international humanitarian law by Russian forces in Ukraine, noting that rape, sexual violence or sexual harassment. “ CNN could not independently verify Dasha’s scary account, but Ukrainian prosecutors in the Kherson region said in a statement that they had investigated her account. In a statement, prosecutors said, “Thanks to the testimony of the victim and the results of a series of investigative actions, it was established in early March 2022, during the occupation of a village where there was no Ukrainian military installation, (there were) war crimes against civilians. , including the rape of a minor resident of the village “. Prosecutors declined to give further details, citing privacy concerns. As parts of the country try to rebuild, the trauma of the Russian occupation continues to terrorize communities in the south. Its barbarity is visible in streets, buildings and houses. But for survivors like Dasha, the trauma of this profession will live far below the surface.
