A Russian wife who was recorded urging her soldier husband to rape Ukrainian women has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Olga Bykovskaya was convicted in absentia of violating the laws and customs of war by the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv on March 24.
It comes after the woman, from Oryal Oblast, was placed on an international wanted list by the Ukrainian authorities in December 2022.
In April of the same year, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) released audio of an intercepted conversation between a Russian soldier named Roman Bykovsky and his wife, Bykovskaya.
The woman was heard giving her husband permission to rape Ukrainian women as long as he ‘uses protection’.
The shocking 30-second clip was released on April 12, 2022, as Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russian troops of carrying out ‘hundreds of rapes’ including sexual assaults of small children in his country.
Bykovskaya’s paratrooper husband, who took part in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has claimed that the male voice in the SSU recording is not his.
However, his voice is reportedly the same as the one in the law enforcement officers’ recordings.
Bykovskaya’s actions were found to violate Article 27.2 of the Convention on the Protection of the Civilian Population in Time of War and the Geneva Conventions.
The court has now sentenced the wife to five years behind bars starting from the date of her arrest. She will also be required to compensate the Ukrainian state for over £280 in legal costs.
Initially, Bykovskaya faced a prison sentence of up to 12 years.
The audio clip shared by the SSU opened with the blue and yellow title: ‘SECURITY SERVICE INTERCEPT: Wives of Russian invaders allow their men to rape Ukrainian women.’
The voice of a woman is then heard saying: ‘So yeah, do it over there’.
It quickly becomes clear what she is agreeing to.
‘Ukrainian women there. Rape them. Yeah. Don’t tell me anything, understand,’ she adds with a shy laugh.
A man’s voice is then heard. ‘Uh-huh,’ he says.
‘So I should rape and not tell you anything,’ he asks, clarifying that the woman is giving him permission.
‘Yes, so that I wouldn’t know anything,’ the women’s voice says, before they are both heard laughing this time. ‘Why do you ask?’ she adds.
‘Can I really?’ he asks again. ‘Yeah, I allow you,’ she says, with a giggle.’
Just use protection,’ she adds. The man replies again: ‘Ok.’
Investigative journalists at Radio Liberty worked with law enforcement in Ukraine to track the phone involved in the call, with one of the numbers being traced to the Kherson region in 2022.
The investigators then found that the two phone numbers were linked to two accounts on Russia’s VKontakte social network – belonging to Bykovsky and Bykovskaya.
Roman’s account was closed to the public, however reporters found him pictured in photographs uploaded by one of his friends – Alexei Zabrusov – which showed that they served together in 2016 in the same army division.
From there, the investigators were able to find other friends and family members of Roman, which led them to more pictures of him in military uniform which established that he is now part of Russia’s 108th Guards Airborne Assault Regiment – a unit known for its involvement in the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
They also learned that the couple had moved to the Russian occupied Crimean peninsula, approximately around 2018.
Olga’s social media account meanwhile was open (until it was deleted on April 13, 2022).
On her account, she was shown in pictures with the man identified as Roman Bykovsky. It also showed the pair share a four-year-old child together.
Radio Liberty tried calling the couple using the numbers that were discovered.
Bykovsky reportedly answered, and denied that he was still in the Kherson region, and once he learned that he was being contacted by reporters also denied he was the man in the audio recording. However, Radio Liberty said his voice was a match.
Bykovska also answered, and confirmed to Radio Liberty that her husband was in Sevastopol being treated for an injury.
After revealing that, she quickly cut the phone call off. Her social media account was deleted soon after that.
The 30-second audio clip of the conversation was posted to the telegram channel of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
‘Wives of Russian aggressors call on their husbands to rape Ukrainian women,’ the agency wrote on Telegram, along with the clip.
‘This shocking interception by the SBU reflects the moral values not only of the occupiers but also of their relatives, 80 per cent of whom now support the war in Ukraine,’ the agency claimed in its description of the recording.