In Ivankiv, a small town 80 kilometers northwest of kyiv, Russian soldiers arrived on February 24 and left on April 1. For the women of the city, these 36 days of occupation within the framework of the war in Ukraine have been hell. “I was scared because people started talking about girls being raped”, says Dasha, a young jeweller. At a coffee table, she evokes the terror in which all have lived. “In the village of Zaproudka, just next door, there were cases”she assures.
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This is the heavy price paid by women in this war: they are raped, tortured, assaulted. Dasha herself experienced a traumatic episode. “Here, near my work, I saw a car of Russian soldiers. They were either drugged or drunksays the young jeweler. It was very scary, because they rolled down the window and they stopped. I thought: where am I running to? Where am I running? What do I do ? I was scared.” Luckily for her, none of them touch her.
To escape the abuses of Russian soldiers, Ukrainian women had to adapt their way of life. “Russians entered a former colleague’s house. They told her not to let the girls out of the house and to dress like homeless people so as not to attract attention.” Consequence: several women from Ivankiv “were neglected”she says, so as not to be noticed, in particular because Chechen soldiers were present around the village. “Over there, it was very scary! The girls no longer went out: the men forbade them to protect them.
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Some women have decided to go further, by cutting their hair to become as invisible as possible. “They no longer wanted to be attractive! They no longer wore makeup, put scarves on their heads like in the villages…”, details Tatiana Syvrydemko, the city councilor of the city. She is still traumatized by this episode. “It stuck. Look at me: before, I would never have gone to work dressed like that.” She says she is convinced that the women will keep these habits until the end of the war. “I’ll explain it to you woman to woman, so that you understand”she slips.
“Even though they are gone, we are still afraid. It will last until there is peace. People will need time to heal from this post-traumatic syndrome.”
Tatiana Syvrydemko, city councilor of Ivankoat franceinfo
In Borodianka, located 45 kilometers south of Ivankiv, the inhabitants also did everything to protect the women of the city. “They were looking for young girls: we found out and we hid them where we could”, says Valentina. The old woman recounts the subterfuge used: “We hid some in the basement. My friend wanted to hide her 17-year-old granddaughter in the hay but the Russians fired into it so she decided to hide her in a drain.”
In front of her house, the old woman remembers the passage of the soldiers: “They broke into every house. They were looking for weapons and asking, ‘Are there any men? Are there any women?’ The Barbarians !” It shows what remains of another dwelling: here, six people from the same family are crushed to death in the rubble.
The young women are not the only ones to have lived in fear of rape and aggression in Borodyanka, a town described as a martyr. Older women like Valentina were also terrified and felt unsafe. “One day I went out and was going straight into the swamps. A soldier came out of a bush and said to me, ‘Grandma, where are you going?’ I told him, ‘I’m going to feed my dogs.’ He replied: ‘Grandma, I’m going to kill you!’ I said, ‘No, my son. Maybe you have a grandmother too.’ He let me go.”
She also recounts the persistence of this fear, even after the departure of the Russian troops. “I take painkillers because I can’t sleep at night. Every passing car I feel like they’re coming back. How scary! I’d give anything in this world to make sure they don’t come back.”
>> War in Ukraine: a mother and her daughter recount two weeks of rape and terror in Boutcha
Although voices are beginning to be heard, it is difficult to know precisely how many women have been raped or assaulted. Indeed, many Ukrainian women are still silent about what happened to them.
Lyudmila Denisova, in charge of human rights in the Ukrainian parliament, documented the cases of 25 women kept in a cellar and raped in Boutcha.
President Volodymyr Zelensky talks about “hundreds of rape cases recorded, including underage girls and small children”. The NGO La Strada says it has received nine calls about rapes committed by Russian soldiers on women aged 12 to 50.