Ukraine, one year on: as the scale of sexual violence continues, war crime units work to deliver justice.

“We have to win in both battles — in the fight for our territory and in the fight for justice,” says Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin.

Ukrainian women protesting on Whitehall, London.

Warning: the following post contains graphic content and sexual violence

‘No one expected that this war would be so cruel. Animalistically cruel. War is always terrible but this war is staggeringly cruel,’ said Olena Zelenska earlier this week. A year on from the invasion of Ukraine, today marks a moment of reflection and pause for the lives lost and enduring scale of sexual violence against women and children carried out in the region.

Since the start of the war Russian soldiers have gang-raped women, castrated men and sexually abused children, according to the United Nations. In December 2022, the UN reported that between February 24 and October 21, it had documented 86 cases of sexual violence, most by Russian forces, including rape, gang rape, forced nudity, and forced public stripping in various regions of Ukraine and in one POW facility in Russia.

Such is the scale and prolonged campaign of sexual violence in Ukraine throughout the w…