A Ukrainian court has sentenced a Russian serviceman in absentia to 12 years in prison in a case involving the rape of a civilian woman during the occupation of Balakliia in Kharkiv region. Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office announced the ruling on October 26. ZMINA reported the details, citing prosecutors.
According to prosecutors, the convicted man served as a grenade launcher operator in the Russian army's 202nd Rifle Regiment. In April 2022, when Balakliia was under Russian control, a local woman was detained on suspicion of cooperating with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and held for about a day in a seized police building.
Under the circumstances described by Ukrainian prosecutors, the serviceman took the woman out of her cell at night, led her to an office and sexually assaulted her while threatening to kill her.
Sexual violence against civilians in the power of a party to an armed conflict is prohibited under international humanitarian law and can constitute a war crime. In this case, the legal classification comes from a Ukrainian national court, not an international tribunal.
The Ukrainian court found him guilty under Article 438, Part 1, of Ukraine's Criminal Code, which concerns violations of the laws and customs of war. The sentence was handed down in absentia, without the defendant present in court.