Even when excluding soldiers entirely, adult men make up more than 60% of verified adult civilian deaths. Context: Russo-Ukrainian War

grzegorz-fienstel · 2026-03-03T07:10:54+00:00

Don't you know that women suffer the most when their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons die?

AfghanistanIsTaliban · 2026-03-03T10:19:19+00:00

According to the UN OHCHR, there are multiple accounts of male Ukrainian POWs being subject to sexual violence during their internment by Russian Federation.

https://cepa.org/article/the-plague-of-sexual-violence-against-ukraines-prisoners-of-war/

“I was taken prisoner in May 2022, and we ended up in the so-called colony in the settlement of Olenivka, in the occupied Donetsk region. First of all, we were stripped, and the woman inserted her fingers into my vagina. After that, they led us, girls, to the other colony workers, who also forced us to undress.

“We could hear the men being raped in the corridor of the isolator. They were raped in unnatural ways,” a former Ukrainian Prisoner of War (PoW) recounted.

“After our transfer to Taganrog [in Russia], we were forced to undress right in the corridor, where there were many male guards. There were frequent threats of sexual violence — the female guards threatened to call a convoy that would rape us.”

There have been numerous harrowing reports from prisoners of war held by the Kremlin. For many survivors, the trauma and dehumanization they endured make it impossible to revisit these memories, often silencing them altogether.

A report from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) revealed that 39 out of 60 male prisoners of war it had interviewed said they were subjected to sexual violence during their internment.

The report further details threats of rape, castration, and beatings, also highlighting repeated forced nudity and other forms of torture, including interrogations and checks for patriotic tattoos, which were often forcibly scraped off.

In Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sexual violence has been weaponized as a tool against prisoners of war (PoWs) to inflict profound psychological scars. Survivors face an unrelenting internal struggle as they attempt to process the trauma that can shatter one’s identity.

Many prisoners held in Taganrog recounted instances of male soldiers having been beaten and raped. It is widely acknowledged that male PoWs in Ukraine have been subjected to sexual violence at alarming rates, with even more cases being unreported due to the stigma attached to gender-based violence (GBV).

In the 2023 report it states that 27 cases contained extreme violence to male genitalia, such as beatings, electrocution, or pulling the POW by a rope tied around their genitalia. The report contains many cases of men dying after torture, execution, or lack of medical care, and also states that men were subject to more severe physical violence. In a prisoner exchange, men were tightly packed in a "herring pattern" (similar to the arrangement in trans-Atlantic slave ships). As for the Ukrainian side, dozens of Russian POWs reported being beaten mostly upon capture with some beatings resulting in severe pain and/or broken bones/teeth. There are multiple cases of summary executions against Russians during their surrender, including massacres.

Here is one case in the report:

In addition, OHCHR analysed videos widely disseminated via social media on 28 July 2022, which appear to show a member of the Russian armed forces kicking the head of a man wearing a uniform of the Ukrainian armed forces, cutting off his testicles with a utility knife and shooting him dead. Although OHCHR was not able to establish the identity of the victim, the incident does not appear staged and would manifestly amount to torture, including sexual violence, and wilful killing.

Here is Bellingcat's description of the videos:

The footage shows a soldier approaching a figure wearing Ukrainian military fatigues and the blue and yellow patches worn by Ukrainian servicemen. The identity of the victim, whose face cannot be seen clearly in the videos, remains unknown.

In the first video, two accomplices were seen restraining the man while the cameraman and a man in a cowboy hat looked on.

In the second video, the presumed Russian soldier in the cowboy hat then castrates the captive, who is mocked by the group of soldiers watching.

In a third video, the captive is executed with a gunshot to the head, presumably by the soldier in the cowboy hat.

Death isn't the worst possible outcome of being a soldier in this war, even for men. Justifying the male-only draft by claiming that male POWs are treated better is nonsensical, because they clearly aren't. Even the non-draftees are sometimes given the Srebrenitsa treatment.

If the Ukrainian war was one of national survival and one that risked destroying Ukrainian culture, then why wasn't it treated like so? Why were millions allowed to leave when war broke out, while others were forced to stay behind?

Usual_Interaction536 · 2026-03-03T06:33:48+00:00

And Ukraine even had the audacity to ratify the feminist istanbul convention after russia’s invasion. I support Ukraine in this war, but the way it treats men drives me crazy.

Smeg-life · 2026-03-03T14:33:32+00:00

Another reason to add to the many of why not to volunteer to fight for a country.

The woman will be told they are victims, the men will be told they should have fought harder and they deserved it

Title	Even when excluding soldiers entirely, adult men make up more than 60% of verified adult civilian deaths. Context: Russo-Ukrainian War
Author	RightConcern1479
Upvotes	168
Comments	5
Date	March 3, 2026 5:22 AM UTC (4 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1rjgtgp/even_when_excluding_soldiers_entirely_adult_men/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/even-when-excluding-soldiers-entirely-adult-men.1574610 https://theredarchive.com/post/1574610

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