Ukrainian MP claims Putin has changed his strategy to ‘target the most vulnerable groups of women and children’
Ukraine MPs have claimed that Russian troops have been raping vulnerable women who are unable to escape the ongoing invasion of their country before hanging them.
These shocking accusations come via Lesia Vasylenko, MP for Ukraine’s opposition Holos party, who shared the news whilst speaking to journalists during a recent visit to the house of commons alongside fellow MPs Olena Khomenko, Maria Mezentseva and Alona Shkrum.
As reported in The Mirror, Vasylenko claimed that President Vladimir Putin had “changed his strategy to target the most vulnerable groups of women and children”.
She added that many “senior citizens” had committed suicide as a result of being sexually abused, in order to escape their ongoing and terrifying ordeal. She also claimed that Russian troops were targeting vulnerable women around the areas of Kyiv, Bucha and Irpin.
“Most of [the women over 60] were executed after being raped or took their own lives,” Vasylenko told journalists.
“The main problem is that victims and families do not have the strength or capacity to come forward.
“It’s a tragedy that no one has found ways to help the victims,” she added.
Vasylenko also claimed that others were so vulnerable, they were physically unable to flee. The MP and lawyer’s suggestions were echoed by her fellow MP Mezentseva, who added: “The ladies who were raped and suffered sexual violence, some of them were also hanged.
“These are the facts we are gathering for evidence on war crimes and to take to the ECHR.”
Mezentseva called upon the UK government to provide more support for humanitarian efforts within Ukraine to provide victims with “proper assistance” and to enable these crimes to be “properly documented”.
These claims preceded today’s news that MPs – both current and former – have called for a new Nuremberg-style international tribunal to be set up to investigate war crimes committed by Putin during his war with Ukraine.
Former MPs Gordon Brown and Sir John Major are among the 140 lawyers, academics and politicians to have signed the petition for a system mirroring the one used for Nazi war criminals following World War II.
Related links:
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- Russian soldiers in Ukraine are ‘shooting themselves in the leg’ so they can be discharged, reports say
- No, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy did hold up a jersey with a Nazi symbol on
