As soon as the war in Ukraine broke out, I heard many people say that Russian soldiers will likely commit acts of mass rape in Ukraine. The basis for this was the mass rape that occurred near the end of WWII committed by Red Army soldiers against German women. Now I was very hesitant to endorse this proposition because it's "history out of context". What do I mean by that? Well what you don't often hear is the other side of the story. In terms of numbers, the highest estimates for the total number of women raped by Red Army soldiers is between 1.5 to 2 million. However, the maximum number of women in the USSR that have been raped by Wehrmacht forces is around 10 million. With the Nazi-occupied portion of the USSR having ~80 million people, if you were a women aged 15-35, I would say it was more likely than not you would have been sexually assaulted. On top of that, when the Nazis abducted civilians from the occupied territories, the most beautiful women were selected out to be kept as sex slaves in brothels; something that the Soviets didn't do.Now, I'm not trying to justify sexual assault committed by the Red Army, I'm saying that crimes committed by country A against country B because country B committed far worse crimes against country A isn't a good indication of how likely country A would behave in a war against country C, However, what I suspect is that when Putin framed the fight against "Nazism", he forced said history into context. And if sexual assault is indeed widespread in the Ukraine war, it would open up "old wounds". Because of the many women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Nazis, many would have been Ukrainian. And I'm not just talking about "collective memory" because some of the women forced into sexual slavery are still alive to this day and I can only imagine what they feel about such reports.
Do you think that sexual violence is prevalent in Ukraine (compared to other conflicts)?
