A Ukrainian court today, June 23, will hold a preliminary hearing in the first case of rape of a woman during the war.

This is reported by The Guardian.

The case is the first of dozens of similar criminal proceedings that have been initiated since Russia's full-scale invasion. The defendant is 32-year-old Russian soldier Mikhail Romanov. The occupant is not in custody in Ukraine and will be tried in absentia.

Romanov as a member of the 239th Regiment of the 90th Guards Tank Division of the Vitebsk-Novgorod Russian Federation participated in combat operations in the Kiev region. In March, during the occupation of a village in the Brovarsky district, he and another soldier broke into a house of civilians.

The Russian soldier shot the owner of the house and then raped his wife several times. The defendant threatened the woman and her child, who was inside the house, with a gun.

Reuters journalists sent a written request for comment to the Russian Defense Ministry. The ministry did not reply for a long time and then rejected accusations of war crimes. The media also say that they were unable to contact the soldier.

We shall remind you that at the end of May, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine said that the first case of war rape was sent to court.

It should be noted that in Ukraine not so long ago for the first time a sentence was passed on a Russian occupant who killed a civilian. He received a life sentence.