‘Carved on bodies and souls’: Ukrainian men face ‘systemic’ sexual torture in Russian detention centres; The Guardian, October 29, 2024

Emma Graham-Harrisonand Artem Mazhulin in Kyiv, The Guardian; ‘Carved on bodies and souls’: Ukrainian men face ‘systemic’ sexual torture in Russian detention centres

"The UN commissioner for human rights has documented hundreds of cases of sexual violence perpetrated by Russian troops since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Two-thirds of the victims are men and boys who were tortured in Russian jails.

Russia deploys systematic sexual torture against Ukrainians, both civilians and prisoners of war, in “almost all” detention centres where they are held, the UN found.

That includes “rape, attempted rape, threats of rape and castration, beatings or the administration of electric shocks to genitals, repeated forced nudity and sexualised humiliation”.

“The numbers in Ukraine are quite startling,” said Charu Lata Hogg, the executive director of the All Survivors Project, which supports men and boys who have endured sexual violence.

The organisation keeps a global database of cases that stretches back three decades, and the scale of new abuse recorded in Ukraine is unprecedented, she said. Sexual violence against men “happens all over the world, but the struggle is always getting documented cases”.

In Ukraine, the UN has recorded 236 incidents of sexual violence against men and two against boys in under three years."