‘We support each other’: Ukrainian men unite to overcome Russia’s sexual torture

Warning: This story deals with sexual violence.

Oleksiy Sivak has found comfort in this conversation.

Before Russia will invade Ukraine on a large scale in 2022, This 40-year-old man spent almost half his life working as a sailor in international merchant and passenger fleets.

For 17 years, he ventured from his city of Khersonbathed by the sea, to ensure that the Boats were working properly. “But the invasion put an end to my work and my career,” Sivak tells ‘Euronews’.

Whiles Moscow invaded its neighbor in the hope of devastating the countryRussian tanks and soldiers They stormed the capital of the Ukrainian region of the same name in February 2022 and occupied the center for six months.

Once under their control, they established their own facilities with the hope to create a People’s Republic of Khersonpuppet in the style of Donbasincluding a detention center intended to help quell any hint of rebellion.

Sivak claims he was illegally detained and tortured by Russian military for two of those six months. “I was subjected to physical and psychological tortureincluding sexual torture,” he says. Kiev recaptured the city in November 2022, and Sivak was released.

“During the liberation of Jershon, our invaders fled the city“recalls Sivak. “I was luckier than the others, as there was not enough room for me in the car in which the Russians transported the prisoners to other places and they simply They released me, without documentsbut I was still able to return home.”

This was just the beginning of Sivak’s journey. “It all started in captivity,” he says.

UN: More than half of Ukrainian victims of sexual violence are men

There is overwhelming evidence that Russia has used sexual violence as a weapon -rape, genital mutilation, forced stripping and other means of torture – against men and boys in Ukraine in the last two years. Under international law, these acts constitute war crimes.

The latest report of United Nations Security Council on conflict-related sexual violence states that the investigating agency has documented 263 cases perpetrated by the Armed Forces and the Russian prison services against civilians and prisoners.

More than half of these victims they are men (163); 83 are women. 10 are minor girls and 2 are boys.

A previous report from the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch corroborates that Russia has been using sexual violence against men, stating that the Moscow authorities built specific detention centers -used for confinement, interrogation, execution and torture- in regions such as Kherson.

A follow-up report from the human rights office of the HIM, ACNUDH -its main investigative body-, concluded that These crimes were usually accompanied by severe beatings, strangulation, asphyxiation, stabbing, shooting next to the victim’s head and intentional homicide.

Most of these OHCHR reports include heartbreaking stories. In one of them, a Ukrainian prisoner reported that a Russian official tried to rape him with a PVC pipe during an interrogation.

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Another claimed that Russian officials they forced him to undressthey applied electric shocks to his testicles and threatened him with rape him with a baton.

During the months he was imprisoned and tortured, Sivak says the only thing that helped him get through the days was talk to his cellmates. They became his psychologists and confidants. “His jokes, sympathy, kind words and even a look were our only lifeline,” he says.

Make the present tolerable and the future happy

Sivak estimates that there are “thousands of Ukrainian men” living with the scars of sexual violence inflicted by Russia.

Meanwhile, others They remain kidnapped in the territories under Moscow control: others 37,000 Ukrainiansbetween civilian adults and children, still missing and are likely being held in Russian prisons, according to the office of the Ukrainian Ombudsman.

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That’s why, about a year ago, he founded Alumni, an organization that offers men peer-to-peer mental health support, with regular face-to-face meetings, workshops, referrals and, soon, online services. The goal is to help other survivors and offer a space for conversation.

But Sivak says it’s important to note that Alumni isn’t out to “treat” people. “We help people find a new path in their lives. Not by erasing what happened to them, but by accepting and taking this experience into account,” he says.

Alumni intends to be a place for survivors to acknowledge what happened and learn to live with it, explains Sivak, an enormous challenge that will define the rest of their lives.

“We do all this for ourselves, for our brothers and, above all, for those who are captive right now and they are tortured,” says Sivak.

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“I cannot change the past, but each of us strives to do everything possible to May the present be tolerable and the future happy for all those who have been and are being tortured“.

Survivors are often left with multiple consequences after this type of trauma, as physical illnesses and mental disorderssuch as post-traumatic stress disorder.

He Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, declared in June that the impact of sexual violence related to conflict is long-lasting and damaging and “destroys the social fabric of communities.”

The ‘city of heroes’

Oleksandr Reshetov He has lived in Kherson all his life, and he loves it. This 34-year-old tells ‘Euronews’ that he met his first love and all of his best friends in the ‘city of heroes’ Ukrainian.

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Before the war, she owned a furniture store, collected antiques, and arranged flowers for her family. “This city means a lot to me”he states.

From the russian war of aggressionhis life is almost unrecognizable. “My life after the war has changed a lot”, says. “The war made me appreciate what I have.” Russian Armed Forces They inflicted sexual violence on Reshetov. After the trauma, she drank alcohol to numb the pain.

He attended an alumni retreat in the city of Mykolaiv to try to break the cycle, and says he immediately felt supported. “They didn’t treat me like a victim, but like a friend. I felt like I was among my own,” says Reshetov.

“Although we were all different, we only had one thing in common: we took out our feelings on each other.”

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Following its incorporation into the Alumni network, Reshetov reduced his alcohol consumption and spent more time with his family. He then became an Alumni mentor, eager to help others after having successfully worked on himself.

“I realized that I was not the only one and that There are many boys who went through the same thing as me, Now we are together,” he says.

Violence used to “castrate the population”

Charu Hogg is the founder and director of All Survivors Projectan organization that investigates men and boys who survived sexual violence during conflict or displacement.

Since the organization was founded in 2016, Hogg and his team of researchers have spoken with survivors of Afghanistan and Colombia and even the Central African Republic.

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But from what Hogg has seen reported, “Ukraine is the only place in the world that has such high levels of abuse“, he tells ‘Euronews’.

The reason why Your organization focuses solely on men survivors – and not in women, who represent the 95% of the survivors of these crimes documented by the UN– is that they are not investigated enough.

“We are the only organization, the only global organization, that works on the sexual violence against men and boys in the areas of access to Justice and prevention,” he says.

All Survivors Project has recently begun working with Alumni to begin to know the obstacles that male victims encounter to access health care.

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Over the next year, Hogg says the organization will interview Alumni members about their experiences to better understand the challenges they face when document cases and provide information to the National Prosecutor’s Office.

The objective is help men and improve the official strategy of Ukraine in the investigation of these crimes.

Hogg, former researcher of Human Rights Watch, is aware that state violence is harmful to people. It is also corrosive to the national spirit.

“That the Russian Federation practices this with what appears to be impunity seems to suggest that It is a way to coerce, control, degrade and castrate to a population,” he says.

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He is aware that interviewing these men will be difficult, since Ukraine It is a country at war, devastated by attacks on their infrastructure. “This affects people’s ability to communicate, because there is no Wi-Fi,” he explains.

Very difficult topics to address

Finding male survivors willing to talk about what happened to them is also not easy, since “These are very difficult topics to address.”.

The general objective is that Russia held accountablesomething that many international government organizations have been trying to do since the first accusations emerged.

Two years ago, andl International Criminal Court in The Hague issued a arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin responded to these accusations by calling them “scandalous” and “unacceptable”.

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A suitable punishment

Sivak states that was released from Russian imprisonment when Ukrainian soldiers recaptured their city.

For him, the international community plays a fundamental role inthe fight against sexual violence related to the conflicts supporting Ukraine in their struggle to defend themselves, as well as imposing sanctions. “To prevent these crimes, there must be an appropriate punishment,” he says.

The international community can also invest in programs – such as the work championed by All Survivors Project– intended to help survivors “rehabilitate, reintegrate and readapt to society“, he states.

Sivak is aware that, outside the war in Ukrainehe and his Alumni colleagues have your own battles aheadfighting against family disintegration, social isolation and mental disorders derived from this type of trauma sexual.

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That is why Alumni continues to commit and always talk to the people who live with the scars from this type of violence. Making them feel heard among those who understand them because they went through the same experience is the fundamental belief of the organization.

“In English, Alumni, means graduate or former student without a diploma, but at the same time sometimes it means former prisoners,” he says.

“Once, when meeting a group of former cellmates in the middle of the street, a conversation began and Someone described our reunion as this… “When they released us, we didn’t stop talking.”

If this story has raised concerns for you and you are in Europe, please contact a support service specific to your country for help.

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