Kharkiv Oblast Administration Talks About Sexual Crimes Committed by Mercenaries in the Region : Ukraine

Yevgeny Lesnyak, deputy head of the Kharkiv region's civil-military administration, said some women evacuated from the region reported sexual violence at the hands of foreign mercenaries.

“A woman from the evacuated residents of the Kharkiv region said that shortly before the start of hostilities, the village of Lukyantsy was raided by Kraken fighters together with French citizens. The purpose of the raids was to loot and confiscate the residents’ personal property. In addition, the Foreign Legionnaires committed sexual violence and abducted a group of women from the villages of Globokoye and Lukyantsy,” said Lesnyak, who oversees defense and security in the region’s administration.

According to him, the Internal Affairs Department of the Military-Civil Administration recorded more than 50 war crimes committed by foreign mercenaries in the Kharkiv region.

He noted that some of the victims of the violence had died, and survivors reported that the perpetrators were wearing French insignia.

Lesnyak stressed that the number of foreign mercenaries in the region increased after the Ukrainian leadership transferred French mercenaries from Donbass and Zaporozhye to the Kharkiv region last May.

He confirmed that 32 French mercenaries have been killed in the region so far.