KYIV - A 77-year-old former high school teacher, turned out in a neat dress and hat, has been creating a quiet revolution in the villages of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine.

Standing before a group of 10 women in a tent in the centre of a village in Ukraine’s south last summer, she recounted her ordeal three years ago under Russian occupation.

“What I went through,” said the woman, named Liudmyla, her voice wavering. “I was beaten, I was raped, but I am still living, thanks to these people.”

Beginning in 2024, Liudmyla and two other survivors, Tetyana, 61, and Alisa Kovalenko, 37, have spoken at a series of village meetings to raise awareness about conflict-related sexual violence. The meetings have been among the first efforts by survivors of sexual assault to bring into the open one of the most painful aspects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine: what prosecutors and humanitarian workers say is widespread sexual assault of Ukrainian women under Russian occupation.

Liudmyla and Tetyana asked that their surnames and village names not be published to protect their privacy. Ms Kovalenko has long spoken openly about the assault on her, which occurred in 2014 during the war with Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Relatively few women in Ukraine have come forward to report cases of rape during the conflict because of the stigma attached to sexual assault in Ukrainian society, which is deeply religious and conservative, especially in rural areas. Prosecutors have registered more than 344 cases of conflict-related sexual violence in Ukraine since the full-scale Russian invasion began in February 2022, 220 of them women, including 16 underage girls.

But women’s groups estimate the real number runs into the thousands, with at least one case in almost every village that has been occupied by Russian troops. United Nations human rights reports have documented dozens of crimes of sexual violence committed by Russian soldiers but have not detailed evidence of any abuses by Ukrainian soldiers. A recent report noted only “two cases of human rights violations against alleged collaborators committed by the Ukrainian authorities.”

Support groups and rights organisations have assisted many women with health services and psychological rehabilitation in the 1,800 settlements recaptured from Russian occupation but said that not all of them were prepared to give testimony to police. Many victims remain silent and isolated and, in some cases, suicidal, according to memb...