Russian girl who instructed soldier husband to rape Ukrainian girls sentenced as she stays on ‘most needed record’
Olga Bykovskaya was recorded telling her soldier husband that it was okay for him to rape Ukrainian women as he invaded the country as long as he “uses protection”
A Russian woman who told her soldier husband to rape Ukrainian women has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Olga Bykovskaya urged her husband Roman Bykobsky, a Russian soldier, to commit sexual violence against Ukrainian women in an unearthed phone recording.
The Secret Service of Ukraine (SSU) released the audio of the intercepted conversation where the woman gave her husband permission as long as he “uses protection.”
In the intercepted phone call to her husband, identified as 27-year-old Roman Bykovsky, she’s heard saying: “So yeah, do it over there. Ukrainian women there. Rape them. Yeah. Don’t tell me anything, understand.”
The Russian woman was on the international wanted list and served with a notice of suspicion of violating the laws and customs of war. She is however still at large, despite a Ukrainian court sentencing her to five years imprisonment, her sentence will start on the day of her arrest.
She is also required to compensate the Ukrainian state for more than UAH 15,000 (approx. US$362) in legal costs, including a forensic linguistic, semantic and textual examination and an examination of the sound recording of the Bykovskys’ voices.
The couple were identified after they spoke to journalists on Radio Liberty and investigators used technology to match their voices to the intercepted phone conversation.
In her chat with Radio Liberty, Olga claimed her husband was in Sevastopol receiving hospital treatment but she did not know exactly where he was. Roman then said that the voice in the SSU recording was not his, but authorities disagree.
Olga and Roman live in Feodosia, occupied Crimea, and were identified by Radio Liberty.
Rape has often been used as a weapon of war, but sexual violence and mass rape in the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been incredibly high.
According to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, the victims of sexual assault by Russian soldiers ranged from 4 years old to over 80 years old.
The United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner issued a report on human rights violations and war crimes in October 2022. It stated: “Sexual violence has affected victims of all ages. Victims, including children, were sometimes forced to witness the crimes.
“Children have become the victims of the full spectrum of violations investigated by the Commission, including indiscriminate attacks, torture and rape, and have suffered the predictable psychological consequences.”
Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, said that “the true scale of sexual violence is hard to imagine.”
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