25 Women Were Held Hostage By Russian Soldiers In A Bucha Basement And Nine Are Now Pregnant

War crime investigators have uncovered horrific allegations of sexual violence against Ukrainians since the Russian invasion.

Warning: this article contains stories of sexual assault and rape.

The detectives have been told Russian soldiers kept more than two dozen women and girls in a basement in Bucha for 25 days.

Ukraine’s official ombudsman for human rights, Lyudmyla Denisova, said she had recorded multiple cases of rape and torture.

She says nine of the hostages are also now pregnant. 

Since troops withdrew from the outskirts of Kyiv, the full extent of atrocities committed against the Ukrainian citizens has surfaced.  

At least 25 women and girls, as young as 14, were raped by Russians in one basement in Bucha. Nine of them are pregnant. Russian soldiers said “they would rape them to the point where they wouldn't want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children."

— Anastasiia Lapatina (@lapatina_) April 12, 2022

Denisova told the BBC: “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.

“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."

The frightening details came after Russia was accused of war crimes following the discovery of hundreds of bodies in Bucha. 

Ukraine is currently investigating the discovery to build a case against Russia, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling the mass slayings a ‘genocide’.

82 years ago, Soviet forces killed 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in the Katyn massacre - and history still remembers. What we are witnessing today in Bucha, Mairiupol and beyond now far exceeds those numbers - and we are all witnesses.

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) April 11, 2022

He said: “Hundreds of people were killed. Tortured, executed civilians. Corpses on the streets. Mined areas. Even the bodies of the dead were booby-trapped.” 

Meanwhile, the Kremlin claims no residents in Bucha suffered any violence from their soldiers. 

One woman from the rural neighbourhood spoke to BBC about her own horrendous experiences.

She said: “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."

She said she was saved from the man by a separate unit of Russian soldiers.

She continued: “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.”

Mariupol siege and total annihilation of the city by Russians should have been a turning point. Bucha massacre should have definitely been a game changer. They were not. Will the use of chemical weapons by Russia be? How many more #RussianWarCrimes will the world tolerate?

— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) April 11, 2022

Denisova has appealed to the UN Human Rights Commission to ‘take into account these facts of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.’

She wrote on Facebook: “The level of brutality of the army of terrorists and executioners of the Russian Federation knows no bounds – raped children.

“There is no place on earth or in hell where racist criminals can hide from retribution!”

Senior UN official Sima Bahous told the Security Council that all allegations were being independently investigated however, the cases were raising ‘all red flags’.