Russian Soldier Charged with Rape and War Crimes in Kherson

A Russian military officer, 38-year-old Zunel Bratov from the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, repeatedly raped a woman and forced her to have sex with an underage girl from the Stanislav village community of Kherson district during the summer of 2022.

According to the Center for Investigative Journalism, in early June 2022, Bratov, a soldier of the 25th Separate Guards Regiment of the Special Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, along with other unidentified Russian military personnel, stopped a woman and an underage girl at a checkpoint near the cultural center in the village of Stanislav. After checking their documents and cell phones, the occupiers released them.

A few hours later, Zunel Bratov broke into their home. Threatening her with a gun, he ordered the woman to go with him to a gully and raped her there. The next day, he stopped the same woman and a minor girl on the street, forced them into his car, drove the older woman to the gully, and raped her again. This happened several times.

In July of the same year, Bratov drove up to an underage girl he already knew who was swimming in the estuary near Stanislav, approached her in the water and touched her genitals. In early August, he broke into the victims' home again, took the woman and the minor girl to a house in Stanislav, forced them to smoke an unknown drug, take off their clothes and pose for photos. Zunel Bratov then raped and beat the woman and began to force the underage girl to perform mutual masturbation. When the Russian soldier fell asleep, the woman and the girl fled home and went to Kherson, where they stayed until the Stanislav community was liberated from the occupiers.

"For the crime, Bratov was notified in absentia of suspicion of violating the laws and customs of war," the prosecutor's office said.

The CJR also found that this is not the first established crime committed by Bratov. It is known that his next victim was another woman whom he stopped in Stanislav in early September 2022, systematically raped and turned into a sex slave for his own pleasure. In mid-October 2022, the woman woke up in the morning and noticed that Bratov was nowhere to be found and that all his belongings were gone. After that, she immediately returned home. Bratov faces 8 to 12 years in prison for his crimes.

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