“According to international law, sexual violence, that amounts to torture is prohibited under any circumstances”, Anna Ruban, KHRG

We bring to your attention an interview with Anna Ruban, a lawyer and researcher of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group (KHRG). Since the beginning of the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Anna has been investigating and documenting numerous cases of sexual violence in frontline and de-occupied territories of Ukraine.

During our conversation, we learnt about the current analysis of cases of sexual violence against women in frontline areas, during the full-scale invasion of the Russian army into the territory of Ukraine, who women should turn to for help in such cases, and how international courts are responding to the enormous number of complaints from Ukrainian citizens regarding this type of crime.

‘Legalife-Ukraine’ (L-U): Anna, welcome to our portal! As a lawyer with the KHRG, you currently specialise in documenting, researching and assisting victims of sexual violence. This topic receives very little coverage in the media, so we will have a rather long conversation. But let’s start at the beginning – what type of crime do such cases fall under?

Anna Ruban: One of the most brutal manifestations of Russian aggression against Ukraine has been sexual violence perpetrated against civilians and prisoners of war. For many victims, what they have endured has become a trauma that they cannot talk about for years. At the same time, it is precisely their testimonies that today enable us to understand the scale of the crimes and to prove that these are not isolated incidents of brutality, but a repeated practice that accompanies the occupation of Ukrainian territories.

From the very first days of the full-scale invasion Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, human rights organisations and international missions began documenting cases of sexual violence committed by Russian military personnel. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (UNHRMMU), the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine (IICIU), Ukrainian investigators and civil society organisations have collected hundreds of testimonies confirming the use of sexual violence against women, men and children alike.

According to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko (Руслан Кравченко), as of 19 June 2026, 401 cases of sexual violence against Ukrainian civilians had been recorded since the start of the full-scale invasion. The victims included 250 women and 151 men, amongst whom were 23 underage girls and one boy. And these are only the cases that people have been able to report. Incidents of sexual violence against Ukrainian military personnel are being investigated separately. The highest number of victims are in the Kherson, Donetsk, Kyiv, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions. The Ukrainian justice system is already taking action. 116 Russian military personnel have been served with notices of suspicion. Sixty-four indictments against 81 individuals have been referred to court. 148 facts of the Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) have been revealed. Ukrainian courts have already handed down 19 sentences against 26 individuals. All those convicted have received sentences of imprisonment.

Sexual violence is a form of gender-based violence (GBV). GBV is harm inflicted on a person because of their actual or perceived gender, or violence that disproportionately affects people of a particular gender. Reproductive violence violates a person’s reproductive autonomy, for example, through forced pregnancy, forced sterilisation, forced abortion or forced contraception. Sexual and reproductive violence often overlap.

Pictured: Anna Ruban (HPG)

Under international criminal law, certain forms of sexual violence are explicitly criminalised as war crimes or crimes against humanity (Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court). These crimes include rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced sterilisation and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity.

Under Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, liability is established for war crimes, including the cruel treatment of prisoners of war or the civilian population and the use of means of warfare prohibited by international law. War crimes are punishable by imprisonment for a term of between eight and fifteen years or life imprisonment.

Under international human rights law, sexual violence, which is equated with torture, is prohibited in all circumstances.

Sexual violence may be linked to an armed conflict; this is also referred to as Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV). The link to the conflict may be direct, where sexual violence is committed by a party to the conflict; or indirect, where conflict-related trauma or militarisation contributes to sexual violence during or after hostilities. Sexual violence occurs in almost all armed conflicts and can be committed by government forces, militias or armed groups. State armed forces are more often the perpetrators than rebel groups or militias. There is evidence that alcohol intoxication may be a significant factor in some men committing sexual aggression. According to data from the International Medical Association for the Prevention of War (IMAPW), the prevalence of sexual violence among prisoners of war and civilians detained in connection with the conflict may reach 75 per cent.

Civil society organisations, such as the KHRG, help to gather information and evidence by conducting interviews with victims of alleged war crimes. In some cases, the KHRG conducts medical and/or psychological forensic examinations in accordance with the Istanbul Protocol, with the aim of documenting the impact of these acts on victims’ health. In addition, KHRG lawyers support victims during the pre-trial investigation and represent them in court proceedings.

Documented cases are stored in a database, which forms the basis for analyses used in submissions to judicial bodies, including the International Criminal Court, and for the preparation of human rights reports.

‘L-U’: Who can women in frontline areas turn to for help in such cases?

Anna Ruban: Practice and research show that most victims experience shame, guilt, low self-esteem and the belief that their situation is unique. They tend not to share what they have been through even with their closest relatives, do not know how to preserve evidence for the purposes of justice, fear physical consequences — injuries, diseases, pregnancy — and often do not seek professional medical, psychological or legal help at all. This means that the support system must be accessible, confidential and one that does not require the person to ‘tell everything’ straight away.

Cases of sexual violence must be reported to the police, the public prosecutor’s office or other competent state authorities in accordance with their respective powers.

The primary priority is the person’s safety, emergency medical care and psychological support. If it is possible to do so without risking life or health, it is advisable to preserve forensic evidence: refrain from carrying out personal hygiene procedures, do not change your clothes, collect physical evidence in clean containers, and undergo a forensic medical examination at the earliest opportunity. However, following these recommendations must never jeopardise a person’s safety.

In Ukraine, the state system, led by the Coordination Centre for Victim and Witness Support at the Office of the Prosecutor General and the relevant departments of the regional public prosecutor’s offices, is responsible for supporting victims. They assess each person’s individual needs, provide information on procedural rights and coordinate the provision of psychological, social, medical, legal and rehabilitation assistance.

Contact details for the Coordination Centre: telephone +38 (066) 904-15-34 (available on Viber, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram), email addresses wvcc@gp.gov.ua and pgo.coordination.center@gmail.com. In addition, the Office of the Prosecutor General has a dedicated channel specifically for reporting crimes related to the Russian Federation’s armed aggression and for documenting war crimes: telephone +38 (099) 525-01-56, web portal warcrimes.gov.ua, email office@gp.gov.ua.

Civil society organisations also play an important role in this process. For example, the Kharkiv Human Rights Group employs lawyers and psychologists who provide comprehensive support to victims. Once a person has contacted the organisation, we try to make the entire process of investigating a crime as less traumatic as possible for the person.

Initially, the victim has the opportunity to speak to a psychologist and receive the necessary support. Lawyers help to prepare and file a crime report, accompany the person during investigative actions and interaction with investigative bodies. If necessary, a psychologist is also present during investigative procedures to provide the victim with emotional support and help minimise re-traumatisation.

The consequences of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) may require long-term psychological support, medical, psychiatric and rehabilitation care, social support, legal aid, assistance in restoring documents, obtaining social guarantees and other types of specialised support in accordance with the victim’s individually identified needs; therefore, the Kharkiv Human Rights Group is committed to supporting victims.

Furthermore, Ukraine has adopted the Law of Ukraine "On the Legal and Social Protection of Persons Victims of Sexual Violence Associated with the Armed Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, and on Providing Them with Urgent Interim Reparations", which defines state guarantees of legal and social protection of victims, as well as the principles for providing them with comprehensive assistance and urgent interim reparations.

‘L-U’: What is the situation regarding this type of crime in the temporarily occupied territories (TOT)?

Anna Ruban: Access to victims and the ability to document cases there are minimal. Testimonies are mostly received after de-occupation or from people who have managed to leave.

“L-U”: Are there any statistics on attacks against sex workers in frontline areas and on TOT?

Anna Ruban: There are no separate, systematic state statistics on attacks against sex workers as a distinct group of victims in Ukraine. This does not mean that such cases do not exist — they simply do not feature in official statistics as a separate category.

‘L-U’: How do international courts respond to such crimes?

Anna Ruban: International justice moves extremely slowly, and no woman who has suffered such an offence should rely on swift justice as the only way to receive support. That is precisely why it is so important that, alongside international mechanisms, a system of immediate assistance — medical, psychological and social — is being developed in Ukraine, along with a mechanism for urgent interim reparations that are not tied to the conclusion of criminal proceedings or international legal proceedings. Justice in the traditional sense is a matter of years, sometimes decades. But a victim needs support today, and this is precisely what everyone who has faced such an experience should be guided by: the first step is safety and assistance, whilst documentation and justice are processes that continue in parallel and should not delay receiving assistance.

The best-known is the International Criminal Court in The Hague, established under the 1998 Rome Statute. The ICC is investigating crimes committed by the Russian Federation on Ukrainian territory since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, including war crimes and crimes against humanity — and sexual violence falls squarely within these categories. The ICC has already issued arrest warrants for high-ranking Russian officials, including two representatives of the Russian military command. However, the very nature of the ICC — a court that has no law enforcement agencies of its own and relies on the cooperation of states — means that as long as the suspects are physically present on the territory of Russia or its allied states, actual arrest and trial are essentially impossible. This is a systemic problem in international criminal justice, which concerns not only crimes of sexual violence but also all other categories of crimes committed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine.

The second important tool is not judicial, but rather one of monitoring and reputational impact: in May 2026, the UN placed the armed forces of the Russian Federation on the so-called ‘blacklist’ for the first time for committing sexual violence during the war in Ukraine. This decision is taken within the framework of the UN Security Council’s monitoring and reporting mechanism on conflict-related sexual violence, and although it does not entail direct criminal prosecution, it carries significant diplomatic and reputational weight — it officially records at the highest international level that these crimes committed by a specific entity are systematic rather than isolated incidents.

The third is the newly established Special Tribunal on the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, founded on 25 June 2025 on the initiative of the Council of Europe. Its mandate focuses specifically on the crime of aggression committed by the top political and military leadership of the Russian Federation — in other words, it is not a direct mechanism for examining individual cases of sexual violence, but the establishment of such a tribunal is of fundamental importance: it demonstrates that the international community is prepared to create new institutional mechanisms where the jurisdiction of the ICC is limited (notably because Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute and the ICC can only investigate the crime of aggression under certain conditions requiring the consent of states).

Lawyers from the Kharkiv Human Rights Group collect all the evidence and send complaints to the UN Human Rights Committee regarding such cases, as well as filing submissions with the ICC.

Finally, national prosecution is continuing in parallel: Ukrainian courts are already hearing cases and handing down sentences — in absentia, as most of the accused are beyond the reach of Ukrainian justice — whilst the prosecution service continues to build up a body of evidence which, in the future, may be used both at the ICC and in future trials when (and if) the defendants come within the jurisdiction.

‘L-U’: Thank you very much for the conversation and analysis!

Interview by the ‘Legalife-Ukraine’ portal

Photo from Anna Ruban’s archive