Russian who urged soldier husband to 'rape Ukrainian women' on international wanted list
22 December 2022, 19:57
A Russian woman who encouraged her husband to rape Ukrainian women has been put on an international wanted list.
The suspect, believed to be Olga Bykovskaya, faces up to 12 years behind bars for violating the Geneva Convention.
In an intercepted phone call to her husband, identified as 27-year-old Roman Bykovsky, she's heard saying: "So yeah, do it over there. Ukrainian women there. Rape them. Yeah. Don't tell me anything, understand."
Her partner replies, "So I should rape and not tell you anything," to which Bykovskaya says, "Yes, so that I wouldn't know anything, before the pair both laugh.
"Can I really?" Bykovsky asks again, to which his wife responds: "Yeah, I allow you. Just use protection."
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Investigative journalists at Radio Liberty worked with Ukrainian authorities to intercept the phone call, which was released in April.
The SBU have now completed a pre-trial investigation and believe Bykovskaya to have broken Article 27.2 of the Convention on the Protection of the Civilian Population in Time of War and the Geneva Conventions.
Investigators managed to trace one of the phone numbers involved to the region of Kherson, which was liberated from Russian occupation in November.
Vladimir Putin's forces have been accused of carrying out war crimes there, as mass graves containing the bodies of civilians, some with evidence of being tortured, were discovered.
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Journalists found the two numbers were linked to the couple's accounts on Russian social media platform VKontakte, and although Bykovsky's profile was private, they found pictures of him on friends' profiles, including ones of him in uniform.
They were able to piece together that he was in the 108th Guards Airborne Assault Regiment, which took part in the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Investigators also learnt the couple, who have a four-year-old child together, moved to the Crimean peninsula sometime around 2018.
