R&I – FS
BUCHA, Kyiv Oblast – A week before she would have turned 23, Karina Yershova was killed by Russian soldiers in Bucha, a town outside Kyiv.
They tortured her and most likely raped her, Karina’s stepfather Andriy Dereko told the Kyiv Independent. Then, they shot her in the head.
“It was clear that they (police) know she was raped as she was tortured, but the detective would not tell us this up front. She said: ‘I have no moral right to tell you’…But hinted at (rape),” Dereko said.
According to Dereko, his stepdaughter was a petite woman who worked as a manager at a local sushi bar and didn’t pose any threat to anyone.
The police did not show Karina’s body to her parents, saying it would be too shocking to see. She was buried in a closed coffin on April 13 in Bila Tserkva in Kyiv Oblast, a day after being identified.
Since the Russian soldiers withdrew from Kyiv Oblast in early April, authorities have been collecting and exhuming the bodies of civilians slaughtered by Russians during the one-month occupation. In Bucha only, they have discovered over 400 bodies of murdered civilians. Russians killed every fifth resident who remained in the city, according to Bucha Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk.
The exhumations and the testimonies of surviving locals have shed light on another Russian atrocity: mass rape of Ukrainians, including women, men, and children.
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Article URL : https://kyivindependent.com/national/hide-the-girls-how-russian-soldiers-rape-and-torture-ukrainians/