Ukraine news latest: Russian forces ‘using rape as an instrument of war’ as Putin sends chilling warning to UK

Russian soldiers are “using rape as an instrument of war” as Putin’s bloodthirsty invasion of Ukraine nears its one-year anniversary. Expert prosecutors in Ukraine have compiled a list of up to 65,000 war crimes committed by Russian troops, with women, young and old, becoming victims of sexual assault. Iryna Didenko, a war crimes investigator in Ukraine, highlighted the horrors of the Kremlin’s alleged crimes. They told The Times: “We began to see that these cases were systematic, these were not the actions of rogue soldiers. Several victims were even saying that they even heard commands given for soldiers to rape. And as we visited the different places we saw the patterns emerge very, very clearly. The same pattern for each and every village.” This comes as the Russian Embassy in London warned Britain would face “consequences” if it provided Ukraine with fighter jets. Read our Ukraine war blog below for the latest news…