Reports of sexual violence involving Russian soldiers are multiplying, Ukrainian officials say.

The crime first got here to gentle final week, when Ukraine’s prosecutor normal, Iryna Venediktova, stated in a Fb publish {that a} Russian soldier had killed an unarmed civilian after which repeatedly raped his spouse. Days later, the White Home stated it was involved about rising experiences of sexual violence in Ukraine.

Then on Monday evening, the Occasions of London revealed the girl’s chilling account. Utilizing the pseudonym Natalya, she advised a reporter she had been in her residence in a village close to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, when she heard footsteps and a shot rang out. Moments later her husband lay lifeless outdoors her entrance door, and two Russian troopers had been at her aspect, one holding a gun to her head.

“I shot your husband as a result of he was a Nazi,” the gunman advised her, earlier than he and the opposite soldier raped her, as her 4-year-old son sobbed in a boiler room subsequent door, in keeping with The Occasions. She stated she was later raped a second time by the troopers, and ultimately managed to flee to western Ukraine along with her son.

“I might have been silent, however once we obtained to the police, my husband’s sister made me communicate up, and there was no going again,” she was quoted saying within the Occasions. “I perceive that many individuals who’ve been damage would keep silent as a result of they’re afraid. Plenty of individuals don’t imagine horrible issues like this occur.”

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, rejected Ms. Venediktova’s allegation, telling reporters in Moscow final week that “we don’t imagine it in any respect.”

“It’s a lie,” Mr. Peskov stated, in keeping with the Interfax information company.

Ms. Venediktova stated a Russian soldier is needed for arrest “on suspicion of violation of the legal guidelines and customs of battle.”

Ukrainian officers contend that quite a few instances of rape and sexual violence have occurred within the nation since Russia’s invasion started on Feb. 24.

Maria Mezentseva, a Ukrainian member of parliament, detailed the girl’s account to Sky Information on Sunday and stated there have been “many extra victims.” She didn’t present additional particulars or say how she realized of different assaults, however stated that she anticipated them to return to gentle as soon as the victims had been “prepared to speak.”

“We will certainly not be silent,” she stated.

Rape and different types of sexual violence, which have accompanied armed conflicts all through historical past, can represent battle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity. Russian forces and Moscow-backed armed teams have been accused of perpetrating sexual violence in different conflicts — most just lately involving detainees in jap Ukraine.

This month, Ukraine’s international minister, Dmytro Kuleba, stated that he had little confidence that worldwide organizations, just like the Worldwide Legal Courtroom in The Hague, would maintain Russian troopers to account. “When Russian troopers rape girls in Ukrainian cities — it’s tough after all to talk about the effectivity of worldwide legislation,” he stated through videolink throughout an occasion at Chatham Home, a assume tank in London.

Accounts of rape and sexual violence started to emerge virtually instantly after Russia invaded Ukraine, in keeping with Kateryna Busol, an affiliate with Chatham Home and a Ukrainian lawyer who documented allegations of sexual violence following Russia’s seizure and annexation of Crimea in 2014.

“These accounts are rising, and we’re listening to that they’re much extra widespread than the one account raised by the inspector normal,” Ms. Busol stated in a telephone interview from Regensburg, Germany, the place she fled from Kyiv within the days following the invasion.

“What we’re listening to by phrase of mouth, from acquaintances of survivors within the nation, is horrific,” she added. “I’ve had described to me incidents of gang rape, rape in entrance of kids and sexual violence following the killing of relations.”

A lot of the accounts, she stated, concerned feminine victims and had been coming from cities in Ukraine’s east and the south occupied by Russian forces.

Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting.