Ukrainian authorities said Tuesday they have identified a Russian soldier suspected of committing multiple war crimes, including the gang rape of a young girl during the occupation of a village outside Kyiv.
Bulat Fassakhov, 20, a native of the Russian Republic of Tatarstan, carried out the crimes in the early weeks of the war in March, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) and the county’s Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova said.
Fassakho, who is serving in the 30th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, 2nd Guards Combined Army of the Central Military District of the Russian Federation, allegedly barged with three comrades into a private home in a village in the Brovary district near Ukraine’s capital.
Ukrainian authorities accused Russian soldier Bulat Fassakhov of participating in a gang rape of a young girl.Security Service of Ukraine
The group forced the family living there into the street, but ordered the unnamed victim — described by SSU as a “young girl” — to stay behind.
Fassakhov and his fellow soldiers then took turns raping the girl while threatening to kill her, Venediktova wrote on Facebook.
Bulat Fassakhov is also accused of having raped another woman.Security Service of Ukraine
A few days prior, Fassakhov had raped another woman, after he and his alleged accomplices broke into a house and locked its inhabitants in the basement, according to Ukraine’s top prosecutor.
“Witnesses have identified him and confirmed the facts of crimes committed by him,” SSU said of Fassakhov, who has not been arrested.
The government agency released several photos of Fassakhov, depicting the blond, baby-faced accused war criminal in uniform, posing with an older woman, and staring unsmilingly into the camera alongside two other youths.
“Witnesses have identified and confirmed the facts of crimes committed” by Bulat Fassakhov.Security Service of Ukraine
According to SSU, its officials have so far identified 1,140 “Russian invaders who committed atrocities against civilians in Kyiv region.”
It has been alleged that Russian forces have been using rape as “a weapon of war,” as Venediktova put it, from the outset of the invasion on Feb. 24.
Ukrainian and international officials have said there is evidence to suggest that Russian soldiers have been raping women, men and even young children in the occupied territories.
The news about Fassakhov comes just days after Sgt. Vadim Shyshimarin became the first Russian soldier to go on trial in Ukraine. He is accused of shooting dead an unarmed 62-year-old man in the first week of the war.
