Russian officers use female combat medics as sex slaves - report

It has recently come out that Russia has allegedly committed crimes not just against Ukrainians but also against the soldiers in its own army, particularly women.

Female Russian combat medics serving on the front lines in Ukraine are reportedly being used as "field wives," according to Radio Free Europe. This is to say, they are being used as sex slaves by other Russian combat soldiers.

In an interview with Radio Free Europe, one such woman revealed that Russian officers force women to perform sexual acts with them and rape them repeatedly. Those who manage to refuse face abuse.

US President Joe Biden said last month that Russian President Vladimir Putin has committed war crimes and the International Criminal Court's (ICC) decision to issue an arrest warrant for him was justified.

The definition of "crimes against humanity" implies the continuous, widespread and systematic use of murder, rape, torture and threats of deportation by Russia against the people of Ukraine.

Hundreds of women gathering in Tel Aviv to protest rape culture, October 15, 2021 (credit: KULAN)

"As soon as I arrived in the Nizhny Novgorod region, at Novosmolino, a colonel noticed me in formation," Margarita, 42, a former field medic in Ukraine, recalled to Radio Free Europe. "He was the commander of the 10th armored division. He said, 'Margo, come with me.'

"He ordered that I be given a uniform and that I report to work in his headquarters," Margarita said. "After I got to know some of the people there better, they told me, 'The colonel has his eyes on you. You will probably be his field wife.'"

She then explained that as she refused the colonel's advances, he made her life "a living hell."

"When we arrived at the front, I finally was assigned to the medical unit," she said. "The officer there told me that the colonel had ordered that I be 'harshly punished.' For a month, I basically lived outdoors. While everyone else was quartered in buildings or barracks, I slept on the ground in a field tent by the road."

"Sometimes I was also not given rations," she added in the Radio Free Europe interview. "They wanted to break me so that I would agree to sleep with him. But I held out. And when he realized I wouldn't submit, he transferred me to an artillery unit close to the front. I thought I would die there."