Photo: ALEXANDER NEMENOV / AFP / Getty Images
Earlier this week, a disturbing clip emerged of an intercepted call in which a woman was heard telling her husband that he could rape Ukrainian women as long as he “used protection” and I didn’t tell him when I got home.
The horrible call was intercepted by the Ukrainian security services (SBU) in kyiv and published on its Telegram channel on Tuesday.
The couple has now been identified by Radio Liberty as Roman Bykovsky and his wife Olga Bykovskaya.
Radio Liberty researchers, including journalist Mark Krutov, discovered that the two phone numbers were linked to two accounts on the Russian social network VKontakte, belonging to Roman Bykovsky, of 27 years old, and his wife Olga Bykovskaya, both originally from Orel in Russia.
Journalists were able to find Roman through a photo that was posted on social media by a friend with whom he had served in the same army division in 2014.
Radio Liberty journalists traced the phone involved in the call. Roman’s account was closed to the public, but journalists found him portrayed in photographs uploaded by one of his friends.
They found out that Roman it is now part of the 108th Russian Guards Airborne Assault Regiment, a unit known for its involvement in the annexation of Crimea in 1200. Also that the couple had moved to Crimea in the year 2018.
The outlet reported that journalists tried to contact the couple several times. Roman responded and denied being the person in the audio clip.
His wife also responded and confirmed that her husband was in Sevastopol being treated at the hospital.
He then proceeded to delete his social media account.
Ukrainian President Volodimyr Zelensky accused Putin’s forces of carry out “hundreds of rapes”, including horrific sexual assaults against young children.
Several testimonies collected by the media corroborate the fears of the NGOs , which indicate indications of the use of rape as a “weapon of war”. A Ukrainian woman told the AFP agency that she was raped by two Russian soldiers when they found out she was the wife of a Ukrainian military man.