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Growing numbers of Ukrainian women in areas recaptured from Russian occupation are starting to speak about the sexual violence they experienced at the hands of Russian soldiers. The watershed moment comes from the amplitude and nature of the crimes, says Inna Shevchenko, a Ukrainian feminist activist and author of “A Letter from the East”.

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The cases of sexual violence documented today in Ukraine took place in the areas that were temporarily occupied by Russia and are now liberated. While prosecutors have registered 344 cases of conflict-related sexual violence since the start of the invasion, women’s groups believe the real number runs in the thousands.

Inna Shevchenko, the author of “A Letter from the East”, spoke to numerous women who returned from Russian captivity and testified as to what they witnessed: widespread, repeated and targeted sexual violence – inflicted not just on civilian and military women but also on men.

“The taboo around sexual violence has begun to break, not because society has suddenly evolved, but because the cruelty of Russian crimes has forced the unspeakable to be said.”

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Certain women old enough to be grandmothers have begun speaking about their rapes at village meetings in Kherson region to raise awareness. “In the face of such barbarity, silence becomes a form of collective abandonment. And it is these voices, fragile but courageous, that are breaking the wall of silence,” said Shevchenko.

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Ukraine’s parliament passed a bill last November to formally recognise conflict-related sexual violence under the law, paving the way for a national policy on these types of crimes. The law will give victims the right to be recognised as survivors and to receive reparations.

She said applications will be filed through a national “Register of Damage” which will collect accounts of the crimes, including material losses. Mezentseva-Fedorenko called the passage of the law a “great achievement” though she admitted that it does little to address the trauma of victims.

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Russian forces currently occupy around 20 percent of Ukraine, and the circumstances of the inhabitants there are murky because of Russian surveillance, limits on media access and internet restrictions.

“We cannot even estimate the real scale of crimes which are currently happening in the territories that are still occupied,” said Shevchenko.

“The horror continues there, in the silence imposed by the occupation.”

[Edit typo.]