Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Aug 20, 2026

'Russian soldiers raped me and killed my husband'

The Russians have withdrawn from areas around Kyiv, but they've left deeply wounded lives that might never recover from the trauma. The BBC has heard first-hand testimony and found evidence of Ukrainian women being raped by invading soldiers.
In a quiet, rural neighbourhood 70km (45miles) west of Kyiv, we spoke to Anna, who is 50. We have changed her name to protect her identity.

Anna told us that on 7 March she had been at home with her husband when a foreign soldier barged in.

"At gunpoint, he took me to a house nearby. He ordered me: 'Take your clothes off or I'll shoot you.' He kept threatening to kill me if I didn't do as he said. Then he started raping me," she said.

Anna described her attacker as a young, thin, Chechen fighter allied with Russia.

"While he was raping me, four more soldiers entered. I thought that I was done for. But they took him away. I never saw him again," she said. She believes she was saved by a separate unit of Russian soldiers.

Anna went back home and found her husband. He had been shot in the abdomen.

"He had tried to run after me to save me, but he was hit by a round of bullets," she said. They both sought shelter in a neighbour's house. They couldn't take her husband to hospital because of the fighting. He died of his injuries two days later.

Anna never stopped crying while telling us her story. She showed us where she and her neighbours buried her husband in the backyard of their home. A tall, wooden cross stands at the head of the grave. Anna told us that she is in contact with the local hospital and is receiving psychological support.

The soldiers who saved her stayed in her house for a few days. She says they would point their gun at her and ask her to give them her husband's belongings.

"When they left, I found drugs and Viagra. They would get high and they were often drunk. Most of them are killers, rapists and looters. Only a few are OK," she said.

Down the road from Anna's house, we heard another chilling story.

A woman was allegedly raped and killed, and neighbours say it was done by the same man who raped Anna, before he went to Anna's house.

The woman was in her 40s. She was taken out of her home, say neighbours, and held in the bedroom of a house nearby whose occupants had evacuated when the war began. The well-decorated room, with ornate wallpaper and a bed with a golden headboard, is now a disturbing crime scene. There are large bloodstains on the mattress and duvet.

In a corner, is a mirror which has a note written on it with lipstick - "Tortured by unknown people, buried by Russian soldiers," it says.

Oksana, a neighbour, told us it had been left there by Russian soldiers who found the woman's body and buried her. "They [Russian soldiers] told me she had been raped and that her throat was either slit or stabbed, and she bled to death. They said there was a lot of blood."

The woman was buried in a grave in the garden of the house.

A day after we visited, the police exhumed her body to investigate the case. The body was found without clothes, and with a deep, long, cut across the neck.

Andrii Nebytov, the police chief of the Kyiv region, told us about another case they're investigating in a village 50km (30 miles) to the west of Kyiv.

A family of three - a couple in their thirties and their young child - lived in a house on the edge of the village.

"On 9 March, several soldiers of the Russian army entered the house. The husband tried to protect his wife and child. So they shot him in the yard," said Mr Nebytov.

"After that, two soldiers repeatedly raped the wife. They would leave and then come back. They returned three times to rape her. They threatened that if she resisted they would harm her little boy. To protect her child she didn't resist."

When the soldiers left, they burnt down the house and shot the family's dogs.

The woman escaped with her son and then contacted the police. Mr Nebytov says his team has met her and recorded her testimony.

They have been gathering evidence at the family home - only its shell is now left. Just a few signs of a previous peaceful, ordinary life lie in the charred ruins. We saw a child's bicycle, a stuffed horse, a dog's leash and a man's fur lined winter shoe.

The husband was buried in the garden by neighbours. The police have now exhumed his body for examination. They plan to take the case to international courts.

Ukraine's ombudsman for human rights Lyudmyla Denisova says they're documenting several such cases.

"About 25 girls and women aged 14 to 24 were systematically raped during the occupation in the basement of one house in Bucha. Nine of them are pregnant," she said. "Russian soldiers told them they would rape them to the point where they wouldn't want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children."

She says they are receiving several calls on support helplines - and also getting information through channels on the Telegram messaging app.

"A 25-year-old woman called to tell us her 16-year-old sister was raped in the street in front of her. She said they were screaming 'This will happen to every Nazi prostitute' as they raped her sister," Ms Denisova said.

We asked if it was possible to assess the scale of sexual crimes committed by Russian troops during the occupation.

"It is impossible at the moment because not everyone is willing to tell us what happened to them. The majority of them currently call for psychological support, so we cannot record those as crimes unless they give us their testimony," Ms Denisova said.

She says Ukraine wants a special tribunal to be set up by the United Nations to try Vladimir Putin personally for allegations of war crimes including rape.

"I want to ask Putin, why is this happening?" said Anna, the woman who told us she was raped. "I don't understand. We're not living in the Stone Age, why can't he negotiate? Why is he occupying and killing?"
line
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
England and Wales Have Fewer Than 1,800 Prison Places Left for Men
A Sleepless Night on Wall Street: Nasdaq to Begin Nearly Round-the-Clock Trading
"The First in the World": 69-Year-Old Protested Artificial Intelligence—and Went to Jail
Ukraine's Ousted Defence Minister Calls for Wartime Presidential Election
China’s Lifelike AI Humans Move From Livestreams Into Real-World Service Roles
Sarah Ferguson Reportedly Retreats to Late Ex-Boyfriend's Swiss Chalet
Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez Sign Prenup Protecting Their Separate Fortunes
Thieves Steal Antonello da Messina Renaissance Masterpieces From Sicilian Museum
Better.com Founder Who Fired 900 Employees on Zoom Is Ousted as CEO
Italian Speed Camera Issues Nearly 32,000 Fines in 10 Weeks, Worth More Than €3 Million
AI Manager at San Francisco Store Recommends Firing Human Employee
Google Launches Pixel 11 With Gemini AI at the Center of Its Hardware Strategy
Reform UK Unveils Plan to Cut Welfare Spending by More Than £50 Billion a Year
Prime Minister Andy Burnham Praised Extinction Rebellion for Doing a 'Great Service'
UK Wildfire Phone Alert Triggers Backlash as Users Switch Off Emergency Warnings
Heathrow Roads Reopen After Burst Water Main Floods Access to Terminals 2 and 3
Former NBA Players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White Say They Will Enter 2027 WNBA Draft
Former Cambridge Professor Jason Arday Found Dead Days After Resigning Amid Plagiarism Row
US Appeals Court Rules AI Agent's Website Actions Are Legally Attributed to the User
France's Constitutional Council Blocks Social Media Ban for Children Under 15
Liechtenstein Changes Royal Succession Rules to Allow Women to Inherit the Throne
Women Allege Rape and Sexual Abuse at British Army College for Teenage Recruits
Minnesota: Two independent investigators posed as Muslims (one wearing a burqa) and showed how they could vote in elections without identification.
China’s Kimi Launches AI-Focused Credit Card With Agricultural Bank of China and American Express
Former Labour Adviser Arrested on Suspicion of Spying for China Held Privileged Access as Top Party Donor
Turkish Parliament Passes Landmark Bill Granting Conditional Amnesty to Disarmed PKK Members
Donald Trump Warns FIFA Against Ousting Gianni Infantino Amid Revolt by Global Football Leaders
Jeff Bezos Joins Investor Group Closing In on $6 Billion Liverpool FC Stake
UK Councils to Receive Sweeping Planning Powers to Ban New Vape and Betting Shops
Russia’s A7 Builds a State-Linked Payments Network Beyond Western Sanctions
Hyper-Realistic Reborn Dolls Draw Collectors Seeking Comfort and Craft
Gen Z Cuts Back on Dating as a Night Out Nears $200
Patients Turn to Artificial Intelligence for Therapy as Psychiatrists Warn of Privacy and Clinical Risks
Couples Embrace ‘Sleep Divorce’ to Protect Rest and Reduce Tension
Meta Ordered to Pay $567 Million and Change Facebook and Instagram Safeguards for Children
Up to only 10 Months in Prison for Swedish Officer’s Murderer Sparks Anger
Success: Nvidia Turned Gaming Chips Into the Engine of the AI Boom
Jorge Messi, Lionel Messi’s Father and Longtime Agent, Dies at 68
AI’s Next Bottleneck Is Power, Not Just Nvidia Chips
Advertising trick: Pepsi’s Harrier Jet Commercial Led to a $700,000 Court Fight
Meta Raises AI Spending Target to as Much as $145bn Despite Pressure Over Returns
Danube Drought Exposes Nazi Wrecks and Pushes Central Europe’s Power System to the Brink
Joe Biden’s Cancer Has Spread Beyond His Bones, Hunter Biden Says
Air Traffic Control Outage Grounded Flights Across the Midwest
Why 2027 Could Be a Strong Year for Stocks—and Why the Forecast Is Fragile
Why Markets May Look Quiet in August After Big Tech Earnings
Australian Crew Evacuates Seriously Ill American From Antarctica in Midwinter Darkness
Trump’s Top General Seeks an Exit Strategy From Iran War, Report Says
Brock Lesnar Retires From Wrestling, Closing a Career of Rare Athletic Range and Lasting Controversy
Trump-Era Policy Shifts Test the Boundaries of U.S. Institutions
×