Ukraine: Investigating Wartime Sexual Violence
Women prosecutors describe steep learning curve to deal with “sheer scale” of atrocities.
Also see
Survivors of Sexual Violence Need Immediate Support
“It is not enough to bring perpetrators to justice; it is important to help people recover.”
Prosecutor Anna Sosonska spent months travelling around recently de-occupied areas of Ukraine in 2022 and 2023, collecting testimonies from survivors of sexual violence.
She recalled arriving immediately after the Russians retreated from the village of Borova in the Kharkiv region, liberated in the autumn of 2022.
“It was crucial for us to find witnesses and survivors before they left the settlement,” she recalled. “We lived alongside them in basements – the conditions were far from comfortable.”
Sosonska heads the specialised directorate to investigate sexual crimes committed in wartime, established in 2022 by the Prosecutor General’s Office after the liberation of parts of Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions revealed unprecedented challenges.
“I previously worked as a prosecutor in the Donetsk region, so we’ve been living with war for a long time,” Sosonska said. “My office was just ten kilometres from occupied Novoazovsk [a city in the Donetsk region]. However, even with that experience, we were unprepared for the sheer scale of this armed conflict and the reports of atrocities we would start receiving.”
Key to this process were field missions by special law enforcement brigades – Sosonak personally participated in nine lengthy trips - to collect testimonies on sexual crimes.
Initially, this effort was led by prosecutor Iryna Didenko under the Prosecutor General’s Office.
“She was the first to go,” Sosonka continued. “She and her team were the first to travel to the de-occupied areas of the Kyiv region, where they met with survivors. Then, the National Police began deploying to Sumy, followed by Chernihiv. We started to see that these were real crimes that needed thorough investigation to understand their scale. That’s how the directorate was established.”
Today, the directorate consists of ten prosecutors – five women and five men. Although there have been multiple male victims of sexual violence in this war, the majority of cases involve women and girls.
Sosonska emphasised that sexual violence was one of the tools used by the Russian military to intimidate civilians living in occupied Ukrainian territories. The youngest recorded victim was four years old, while the oldest was 83.
"When the occupiers realised we had begun actively investigating cases of violence, their propaganda started claiming that ‘Russian men haven't seen their wives in years, and here are such beautiful women,’” Sosonska continued. “But no, this is never about sexual desire. What sexual desire could possibly motivate raping a four-year-old child in front of her mother? Or an elderly woman who can barely walk?"
Prosecutors also report a systemic pattern in these crimes, indicating the Russian military command condones sexual violence.
"We have a case where a Russian commander gave an indirect order to rape, telling a subordinate to go and ‘have fun with a woman,’” Sosonska said.
One of the key challenges prosecutors faced was changing their approach to communicating with survivors. As the team themselves realised, their university education did not include courses on building ethical relationships with survivors. In fact, they had even studied victimology – a discipline focused on how a victim’s behaviour supposedly provokes the aggressor.
"The most important thing is to focus on preventing the re-traumatisation of survivors,” said Olha Chekyrda, another prosecutor with the directorate. “As for professionals, they should be not only well-versed in legal matters but also compassionate.”
Outside experts, including investigators with experience in international tribunals, were brought in to guide the department’s approaches to working with survivors of wartime sexual violence. Communication is now structured around the principle that only the perpetrator is guilty, not the victim.
In 2023, the Prosecutor General’s Office officially approved and published a report on a human-centered approach to pretrial and judicial investigations. The aim is now to prioritise the well-being and psychological stability of individuals involved.
Under these new guidelines, survivors first receive support from psychologists and only after this stage do investigators and prosecutors step in. This is often in the presence of the same psychologist the survivor has already met.
"This is how we establish a communication bridge with survivors, regardless of whether they are women, men or children,” Chekyrda said. “Furthermore, if an investigator initially engages with a survivor, that investigator will be their sole point of contact. The same applies to prosecutors. This system is in place to ensure the individual feels safe and secure, knowing their personal information is not being shared with multiple people who might call seeking further details.”
Survivors can also request a change of the law enforcement officers handling their case by applying to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
“For example, this might be necessary if an investigator reminds the survivor of their abuser. And that’s completely normal, if someone feels uncomfortable, we have other professionals who can take over,” Chekyrda said.
This psychosocial care extended to the prosecutors; Chekyrda emphasised that investigating war crimes inevitably left a mark on their personal lives too.
"On top of these stories, anxieties and the constant threat of incoming strikes are draining,” she said. “That's why each of us is searching for a source of energy and a way to recharge. We might grab lunch together as a team, share impressions from events or simply spend time with family – and already feel lighter.”
