UN Report: Russian Forces Behind 89% of 1,004 Documented Sexual Violence Cases in Ukraine War

The UN Human Rights Office published a report Friday, September 18, documenting 1,004 cases of sexual violence tied to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, spanning February 24, 2022 through the end of July 2026. Of those cases, 89% are attributed to Russian authorities, according to the report, titled Sexual Violence in the Context of the Russian Federation Full-Scale Armed Attack against Ukraine.

The remaining 11% are attributed to Ukrainian authorities, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said. The report is based on confidential interviews with hundreds of survivors, plus court documents and official records.

What Russian forces did

The violations documented include gang rape, genital mutilation, electric shocks, beatings of prisoners' genitals, forced nudity, and forced witnessing of sexual violence against fellow captives. The youngest documented rape survivor was a 4-year-old girl. The oldest was an 82-year-old woman. Both cases were perpetrated by Russian authorities, per the report.

Danielle Bell, head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, told reporters in Geneva that these crimes occurred "throughout captivity, transfer, interrogation, in the cells, in the shower and even before release or exchange," according to UN News. She said investigators documented the same practices repeated across facilities.

"The application of electric shocks to genitals with a 'tapik' or taser was a common form of sexual violence used against Ukrainian POWs and retained medical personnel," the report states, noting 155 cases, 27% of the total, involved this method at least once. One POW described being raped with a baton, another forcibly penetrated with cell door keys. A civilian said he was raped with the handle of a shovel.

Outside detention, in Russian-occupied territory, women and girls were subjected to rape, gang rape, and threats, mostly in residential settings. In one case documented in the Kyiv region, two Russian soldiers shot and killed a woman's husband in 2022, then gang-raped her while threatening to shoot her in front of her four-year-old son, according to the report.

Roughly 75% of former POWs and nearly half of all detained civilians said they were assaulted more than once, the OHCHR found. Most victims overall were men, particularly those held in Russian detention facilities.

The scale is likely undercounted

Bell told reporters, according to The Hindu, that the documented cases are "just a fraction of the reality," since investigators were only able to interview around 10% of prisoners released by both sides and had no access to Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine.

This means the real number could be far higher than 1,004, though the UN itself hasn't put a figure on it beyond that acknowledgment.

Accountability gap

OHCHR stated plainly that Russia "has failed to take any discernible steps to prevent, investigate, or prosecute sexual violence committed by its personnel," according to zmina.info's reporting on the document. Russia has enacted legal provisions granting broad impunity for crimes committed during military service and has not engaged with OHCHR on the issue, the report says.

Ukraine, by contrast, has taken "concrete steps" including legal reforms and command-level directives, and cooperates regularly with OHCHR, per the same findings. The UN mission noted Ukraine provides "unfettered access" to its POW camps and detention facilities, according to Bell's Geneva briefing reported by UN News.

That cooperation doesn't erase Ukraine's 11% share of documented cases. Nearly half of the violations attributed to Ukrainian personnel consisted of threats of sexual violence against Russian and other foreign POWs, the report found, a materially different category than the completed rapes and torture documented on the Russian side. UN High Commissioner Volker Türk called for accountability from both sides, saying sexual violence "must stop immediately, irrespective of the perpetrators," while also pressing Russia specifically, "given the high prevalence of cases attributed to its forces," to take steps to protect civilians and POWs.

Russia was added in May to the UN Secretary-General's list of parties credibly suspected of committing conflict-related sexual violence, according to Euronews.

One discrepancy worth flagging: some outlets, including the New York Post, cited a figure of 892 victims and 16 assaulted children, numbers that don't match the OHCHR's own tally of 1,004 total documented cases. The Post's internal breakdown, 725 men plus 151 women, also only adds to 876, not 892. The primary UN document and every other outlet reviewed for this story, including UN News, Euronews, and The Hindu, used the 1,004 figure.

Türk urged Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine "in line with binding international law." No international prosecution mechanism has charged Russian personnel over the specific cases in this report, and the OHCHR has not said whether it expects Moscow's cooperation to change.