UN Special Representative Pramila Patten said that Russian soldiers are allegedly being supplied with Viagra so that they rape civilians in Ukraine. We checked whether her accusations were justified.
On October 14, 2022, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, said in interview Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Russian soldiers in Ukraine are allegedly "supplied with Viagra" because rape is their military strategy. “All the signs are there. When women are held for days and raped, when you start raping boys and men, when you see mutilations on the genitals, when you hear testimonies from women about Russian soldiers carrying Viagra, this is clearly a military strategy,” said Patten to reporters. UN special envoy's words make headlines Russian, Ukrainian and others world Media. Tweet AFP with Patten’s quote at the time of writing this analysis, it received more than 2,100 likes and 1,200 retweets.
By mid-December 2022, according to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, the country had recorded more than 150 cases of rape of local residents by the Russian military. Such crimes have been documented by several international organizations (e.g. Human Rights Watch). Monitoring group of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights by the beginning of last summer received more than 120 reports of alleged acts of rape. However, according to words human rights activists, this figure does not reflect the real scale, since sexual violence is “the most hidden crime”, which is also difficult to investigate in war conditions. Dozens of media outlets wrote about victims of violence in Ukraine (in particular, The New York Times, Deutsche Welle, NPR), and in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine open dozens of criminal cases against Russian military personnel accused of similar crimes.
Mentions of Viagra in the context of the conflict in Ukraine first appeared in the media in April 2022. BBC published the story of a resident of a village near Kiev about how, in early March, a Russian soldier who burst into the house wounded her husband (he soon died) and began to rape the woman. According to the Ukrainian woman, four more soldiers soon arrived and took her colleague away. Numerous cases of rape in this village were confirmed by neighbors and local police. The soldiers who “rescued” the woman lived in her house for several days, but “behaved strangely, as if they were drunk.” After they left, the heroine of the publication found “drugs and Viagra” left by the soldiers.
IN translation This article, published by the BBC Russian Service two days later, specifies that the woman found “diphenhydramine, glue and female Viagra." We were unable to find any other publication that mentioned the type of Viagra or drugs discovered by the heroine of the article after the Russian soldiers left.
The second time Viagra was mentioned in the media - reportage British television channel Sky News in May 2022. A resident of the Kyiv region, who, according to her, was subjected to violence by Russian soldiers, asked a rhetorical question: “He was aggressive. 19 years old, but he had such aggression. I don't know if he was taking Viagra or some kind of drug? Actually so crazy."
In April 2022, the Swiss non-profit organization Insecurity Insights, which documents the impact of violence and military conflict on people's lives, published report about armed actions in Ukraine. The report states: "Reports have emerged of Russian soldiers carrying drugs, Viagra and packages of condoms, raising questions about whether the items were purchased privately or given to them." The report contains descriptions of cases of violence that were reported personally by victims, from social networks, or from conversations intercepted by the Ukrainian Security Service between Russian soldiers and their relatives in Russia.
The next mention of Viagra among Russian soldiers appeared only in October 2022 - just in an interview with Patten. When asked whether rape was used as a military tactic in Ukraine, the UN special envoy responded that “all the signs are there,” mentioning “Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra.” In the original English, the phrase sounded like “Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra,” which does not indicate where the soldiers could have gotten the drug from. That is, specifically in this interview, Patten did not directly say that “equipping Viagra” was an initiative of the leadership of the RF Armed Forces or the Russian authorities. Rather, her quote was distorted Media, publishing headlines like “Russia gives soldiers Viagra to rape Ukrainians - UN spokesman.”
However, a month after the AFP interview, Patten did mention the deliberate distribution of the drug to soldiers. November 10 Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus (Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov) called the UN special representative on behalf of Ukrainian human rights activist and Verkhovna Rada deputy Alexander Merezhko and asked whether Russia really has a state program for distributing Viagra to soldiers. Patten responded: “I received this information when I was in Kyiv on May 3, from victims and medical personnel.” She went on to describe reports of women and girls being held in the basements of buildings in Mariupol, gang rapes for several days, and Russian soldiers being supplied with Viagra and other drugs. Asked if she had any evidence, Patten replied: “No, no, no. Like I said, it's not my role to go and investigate. I sit in an office in New York with advocacy credentials. My role is not in the investigation. The investigation is ongoing by the Human Rights Monitoring Group and an international commission of inquiry. Their reports don't say anything about Viagra yet."
In the reports of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which Patten most likely spoke about (for September And October 2022, covering the period from February to July), indeed more than a hundred cases of rape of Ukrainian residents by the Russian military are documented. But the documents never mention the words “Viagra,” “drug,” or “medicine.”
Thus, there is no clear evidence that in Russia there is a state program for issuing Viagra to military personnel sent to Ukraine. If such a program really existed, it would be almost impossible to hide it, and some information about wholesale purchases of the drug would have already leaked onto the Internet. The version about the state program spread most widely after Pramila Patten’s interview with AFP, which in fact did not clearly state that commanders were deliberately distributing this drug to Russian soldiers. Patten herself later clarified that she was not aware of any evidence to support this version. There is no mention of the state program in the reports of authoritative international organizations.
Photo collage on the cover: minister defense of Russia and package drug "Viagra" (WikiCommons)
Most likely not true
- Correctiv.org: Reports of sexual violence in the war: Why the Ukrainian parliament dismissed Human Rights Chief Denisova
- BBC. Violence as a means of warfare. What is known about rapes during the war in Ukraine and how they are investigated
- "Present tense." Sexualized violence in the war in Ukraine
- UN. Murder, rape and torture in Ukraine are not fake
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