ITV News Global Security editor Rohit Kachroo has heard of a new horror allegedly committed by Russian troops against Ukrainian civilians. Russian soldiers occupying a suburb of Kiev reportedly raped and held hostage a 15-year-old girl whose mother died while being held against her will, according to ITV News. The teenager was reportedly held by Russian troops for 10 days near Irpin, the hotly contested city about 12 miles from the Ukrainian capital. ITV News located Konstantin Gudauskas, the volunteer who rescued the girl and passed on the gruesome details – which are being passed on to war crimes investigators – to Global Security publisher Rohit Kachroo. He described the surprise he saw the teenager unloading food and medicine from the back seat of his car in an area of Vorzel, a town near the capital. Konstantin Gudauskas told Rohit Kachroo about the horrific ordeal in which the teenage girl says she suffered. Credit: ITV News “I did not notice a little girl sneaking into the car through an open door,” Mr Gudauskas told ITV News. “When he saw my eyes, he just said, ‘Please save me.’” The volunteer said he could not sleep for 48 hours after hearing how the teen’s mother was allegedly allowed to bleed to death for two days in a basement in front of her eyes. He said he was raped by Russian soldiers, who allegedly filmed the act on a mobile phone. “I will never forget this story,” said Mr Gudauskas. He went on to reveal how Russian soldiers have looted private homes, stolen cars left behind and thrown people out of homes they want to occupy. “They can go into any house and get whatever they want. If people try to stop them, they shoot people,” he said. One of the displaced calls her family to tell them she survived. Credit: ITV News Talking to her relatives on the phone, a survivor was described as being forced to hide in her basement while Russian troops occupied her house and slept in her bed. But when two of her elderly neighbors dared to go out, they were reportedly killed. After the horrific attacks, he felt a cautious relief when the mayor of Irpin said that Ukraine was again in full control of the city after weeks of heavy fighting and constant bombardment around the area. Many of Irpin’s buildings have been reduced to rubble, with basic infrastructure left in ruins after relentless attacks, forcing much of the 60,000 pre-war population to flee. Exclusive footage taken in early March shows Russian troops just a few miles from the center of Kiev Rohit Kachroo reported from the city earlier this month when Russian vehicles with the “V” mark painted on their sides were seen moving slowly through a residential area. At one point, 16 soldiers appeared gathered around three military vehicles. As a sign of the unfolding humanitarian crisis, the images showed residents climbing under a damaged bridge and into a river to overcome Russian shelling and mortar fire. People leaving Irpin as Russian armored vehicles and troops patrolled deserted streets. Credit: AP But in a desperate attempt to escape the horror, there were reports of innocent civilians being shot by invading forces as they fled along an evacuation corridor, despite assurances of safety. As one of the cities on the Russian-Kyiv route, the capture of Irpin, which is also close to the main battlefield at Hostomel Airport, was considered strategically important for Moscow’s war targets. Thus, his recapture was used by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to boost his country’s morale as signs began to emerge that Russia was beginning to limit its invasion targets. Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed that Ukraine needs its own security guarantees as part of any agreement. Credit: AP “We still have to fight, we have to endure,” Mr Zelensky said in a video clip to the nation on Monday. “We can not express our feelings now. “We can not raise expectations, just so we do not get burned.” As a sign of progress in peace talks, Russia said on Tuesday it would “fundamentally cut” operations outside Kyiv to “boost mutual trust”. Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin has said that Russian forces will reduce “military activity in the direction of Kiev and Chernihiv” to what appears to be the first major concession made by the Russians since the beginning of their invasion. from a month. For analysis by experts on this topic, listen to the Ukrainian episodes of the podcast What You Need To Know
