UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that the organization has recorded dozens of cases of sexualized violence against men, women and girls by the Russian military.
“Serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights against prisoners of war have also been documented – and hundreds of cases of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions of civilians,” Guterres said.
He sharply criticized the Russian invasion of Ukraine, noting that the number of human rights violations in the course of this war is unprecedented.
Earlier, The New York Times, citing Irina Didenko, a prosecutor who is investigating crimes based on sexual violence. wrote that Russian commanders knew about the rapes or even encouraged them. In particular, they gave instructions in which they pushed the military to violence, for example, they gave the command to the soldiers to “relax a little.”
The Russian leadership denies all accusations of mass rape of Ukrainians by Russian servicemen. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called all statements unfounded evidence and nothing more than "rumors and gossip."