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While there has been widespread international outrage and help for women and girls raped by Russians in occupied territories, there has been far less attention on sexual violence against men and boys whether under occupation or in captivity thetimes.co.uk/article/ukrain…
Anzhelika Yatsenko is a psychologist in Poltava, Ukraine who deals with particularly troubled young men. She says: “As someone who gets referred the hardest cases, mostly men under 35, it’s very hard to surprise me”
But when two Ukrainian soldiers, aged 25 and 28, were referred to her after spending time in Russian captivity, it was, she said, “the first time I behaved not like a professional psychologist”
“I’d never heard anything so horrible. I told them I needed the bathroom and went and cried and cried. I didn’t want them to see as they might think there’s no hope” 
The two men had been savagely beaten. Then they had been castrated, their manhoods cut off with a knife by drunken Russians
Their treatment graphically illustrate the heavy cost of this brutal war – one that is only likely to rise as Ukrainian forces try to breach Russian lines in the early stages of their much awaited counteroffensive
Yatsenko believes her patients are not the only prisoners to have been castrated.
“They told me the Russians performed the castration procedure very skilfully as if they knew how to do it. And I’ve heard about a lot of cases from colleagues treating others”
“They told me the Russians performed the castration procedure very skilfully as if they knew how to do it. And I’ve heard about a lot of cases from colleagues treating others”
Yatsenko says the men are very hard to treat. “They take a lot of anti-depressants, that’s all. And we try to find some distractions for them. They can’t talk to their families or friends”
Read the full report from @christinalamb: thetimes.co.uk/article/ukrain…
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