The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has put a Russian woman, Olga Bykovskaya, on an international wanted list. She had previously urged her husband Roman Bykovskiy, a Russian soldier, to rape Ukrainian women.
The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine submitted an indictment against Bykovskaya under an article on the violation of laws and customs of war (Part 1 of Article 438 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code) to a local court. The agency's report states that the woman called for violence “on the basis of personal animosity towards Ukrainian society and disregard for Ukrainian women.” Bykovskaya was put in pre-trial detention in absentia.
The conversation that led to Bykovskaya being put on the wanted list was intercepted by the SBU in April. In it, Bykovskaya addresses her husband, who was deployed near Kherson as part of the Russian army: “Go ahead, rape Ukrainian women rape and don't tell me anything. You got me? Make sure to protect yourself.”
According to a report by Radio Liberty’s Skhemy project, Bykovskiy previously served in the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) and published photos with fellow servicemen, taken in Balashikha near Moscow. Both Bykovskiy and his wife are from Russia’s Oryol region, but lived in the annexed Feodosiia in Crimea. A Radio Liberty journalist called Bykovskiy: he denied that his voice was on the recording and claimed that he was lying wounded in a hospital in Sevastopol. Bykovskaya confirmed that her husband was being treated in Sevastopol, and then hung up. After the journalist's call, she also deleted her profile on social network VK.
