- Nadbit Dabaev, 23, and Nikolai Senenko, 37, were accused of heinous rapes
- Cases contribute to huge dossier being compiled by Ukrainian investigators
A pair of Russian soldiers who are accused of a string of heinous rapes – including that of a 16-year-old girl – have been unmasked by Ukrainian investigators.
Russian corporal Nadbit Dabaev, 23, and unit commander Nikolai Senenko, 37, were both identified by investigators following harrowing testimonies given by their victims.
The younger Russian allegedly twice raped a young woman after he tore her away from her parents’ house in a village near Kyiv in the early days of the war following the February 2022 invasion by Vladimir Putin’s forces.
Senenko meanwhile is said to have sexually abused a pregnant 16-year-old after having threatened to call a company of 20 men to gang-rape her if she did not comply.
The cases form part of an ever-expanding dossier being compiled by Ukrainian and international investigators of war crimes committed by Putin’s invaders.
Dabaev’s alleged victim, speaking under a pseudonym of Darya, told police she was raped by the Russian serviceman twice in as many days when she was captured while staying at her parents’ village of Havronshchyna on the outskirts of Kyiv.
The family hid in the cellar from bombing in the weeks after the invasion before Moscow’s troops were repelled from the regions around the capital, but invading Russian soldiers found them there, the Kyiv Independent revealed.
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Putin’s troops accused the family of reporting the coordinates of their units to Ukrainians to direct artillery and mortar fire, and Darya was taken for ‘interrogation’ allegedly by Dabaev, a serviceman from the Buryatia region in Siberia with the 8th company of the 37th separate motorised rifle brigade.
‘He picked up my phone and asked: ”Who’s phone is it?” I said: ”It’s mine”,’ Darya recounted.
‘He said: ”Get your things ready, you are coming for interrogation”.’
Nadbit put Darya in her father’s car, blindfolded her and took her to a neighbour’s abandoned house.
‘He took me by the hand, walked me to the second floor of the building, sat me on the bed and told me: ”Undress”.
‘I understood what was going on and asked if he was going to question me about the phone. He said that he was not interested in my phone.
‘You understand what happened next. It was not an interrogation. It was a rape.’
Darya testified that he came back the next day, took her to the same building and raped her again.
Dabaev is said to have revealed that he had a pregnant girlfriend waiting for him back in Russia, and that his uncle was a senior military figure.
Darya told the newspaper: ‘I accepted what was happening. I psychologically ”left” my body, so to speak.
‘I waited until it all ended and ”returned” back to my body. I didn’t want anyone to know.
‘I didn’t even want to go to the police [after Ukrainian rule was restored following the 2022 Russian retreat from Kyiv region].
‘But my mum went to the police, and told them everything.’
Senenko meanwhile, a unit commander in the Putin-sponsored Donetsk People’s Republic army, was ‘drunk’ and armed when he and another soldier came to a house in the village of Krasnovka in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region.
His victim – going by the pseudonym Maryna – and her relatives were cowering in a cellar. He asked everyone how old they were.
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‘He was asking girls,’ said Maryna, who at the time of the ordeal was just 16 years old and pregnant.
‘He called my mum into a different room. He let her go very quickly. After that he called me. And… he raped me.’
Maryna continued: ‘He threatened me that if I fought back he would shoot me…
‘I told him I was pregnant and told him I don’t want this. But he said: ”Why are you being difficult?”
Senenko then issued a chilling ultimatum.
‘If you don’t want to do it with me I’ll call 20 men now and they will all do it to you one by one. So you choose me or them.
‘I tried to push him away but even though he was drunk he was still stronger.’
The identification of Dabaev and Senenko comes just months after the UN declared Russian troops were conducting a campaign of war crimes in Ukraine, including ‘systematic’ torture and rape.
The high-level Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the rights situation in Ukraine said that it had found fresh evidence of widespread abuses.
The investigators said they compiled their latest report after speaking to more than 800 people during 16 separate visits to Ukraine, having found that Russia’s treatment of civilians and prisoners of war was ‘horrific’.
‘The report documents incidents of rape and other sexual violence committed against women in circumstances which also amount to torture.
‘It also details incidents of torture with a sexualised dimension and threats of rape against male prisoners of war,’ COI chief Erik Mose told reporters.
Investigators also found ‘additional evidence’ that Ukrainian children had been unlawfully transferred to areas under Russian control.
‘The evidence shows that Russian authorities have violated international human rights and international humanitarian law and committed corresponding war crimes,’ Mose said.
‘Further investigations are required to determine whether some of the situations identified may constitute crimes against humanity,’ he added.
The 23-year-old Dabaev is also wanted over another sickening incident in March 2022.
He interrogated a group of residents at gunpoint, threatening to kill them, according to Ukraine prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova.
‘He interrogated the residents for a long time, holding them at gunpoint, and threatened to kill them.
‘Then the monster put everyone in a line one after another.
‘He explained to the ”targets” that he did not want to waste extra cartridges on shooting them.
‘After that, he shot at the ceiling and left, promising to come the next day and shoot people.’
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
