The atrocities that Russian soldiers and militia are committing in occupied areas of eastern Ukraine are reminiscent of those perpetrated by Red Army soldiers during World War II. In addition to mass murder of Ukrainian civilians discovered in liberated areas around Kyiv, there is now evidence that Russian men are raping women and children in occupied territory. It is estimated that during the Second World War Red Army soldiers raped approximately two million German women and children. It is also common knowledge that Soviet servicemen committed similar acts in Poland and other areas of Eastern Europe during their 1944-1945 march to Berlin. Soviet propagandists at the time vociferously encouraged Soviet soldiers to exact revenge on the German population, including rape and murder. When Stalin received reports of widespread theft, destruction, wanton murder, and rape in Germany, he and other high-level Soviet authorities tacitly condoned these actions.

Russian state-controlled media today is rife with similar inflammatory anti-Ukraine propaganda which falsely promotes the idea that Ukrainians are all Nazis. One political commentator has gone so far as to publicly call for Russia to commit genocide in Ukraine – to destroy the Ukrainian ethnic identity and Russianize the people in a process Russian authorities call “denazification.” Unlike during World War II, technology exists today that allows the world to become witnesses of these heinous atrocities in real time. Yesterday, the Ukrainian State Security Service posted another in a series of intercepted phone calls to their YouTube account that attest to these facts.

Heartbreaking Phone Call Between Distraught Grandmother and Russian Militia Member Family Member

The call, which includes an English language transcript in the video, is a conversation between an ethnic Russian woman who lives in the village of Tarasivka in the disputed Zaporizhia region and a male family member named Seryozha. The man is a member of a Russian backed militia that is operating in the Kherson region. The woman, who mentions her children and grandchildren, is distraught over the behavior of occupying Russian soldiers or militia members wearing red armbands. The woman states that she was against the Ukrainian Banderites and believed in the Russian cause, however the Russian soldiers are now raping children and stealing from people in her town. She tells the man that Russian soldiers or militia members get drunk and exchange fuel with men who will tell them where there are girls hiding in the town, then the Russians come and rape them. The people in her village attempt to pacify the Russian men with gifts of food. Her male family member is incredulous and asks her if these are rumors or if it is firsthand information. He also suggests that she leave the village and go to Kherson, to which the woman replies that they are bombing Kerson and that it is no longer there. The woman, sobbing hysterically, goes on to say that she has seen this firsthand herself and that she does not know where to hide her fourteen-year-old granddaughter Sonya. She is also worried for her ten-year-old grandson Sasha. The call is heartrending and tragic.