Russian military wife urging her husband to rape Ukrainian women convicted in Ukraine

The Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv has convicted in absentia of violating the laws and customs of war and sentenced to 5 years in prison a Russian citizen, Olga Bykovska, who urged her husband, a Russian soldier, to rape Ukrainian women. Source: Skhemy, a Radio Liberty project Details: The decision, the text of which has been seen by Skhemy, was adopted by the court on 24 March 2025.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) released audio of a conversation between a Russian soldier and his wife, which was intercepted in April.

The woman gives her husband permission to rape Ukrainian women, but "use protection". Journalists of the Ukrainian and Russian services of Radio Liberty identified the couple as Olga and Roman Bykovsky living in Feodosia, occupied Crimea. The Russian woman was served with a notice of suspicion of violating the laws and customs of war and put on the international wanted list.

Ukrainian law enforcement officers completed the investigation and sent an indictment against Olga Bykovska (nee Pinyasova) to court in December 2022.

The court has now sentenced her to 5 years' imprisonment from the date of her arrest. Bykovska is currently on the international wanted list. She also has to compensate the state for more than 15,000 hryvnias (US£361,66) in procedural costs, including a forensic linguistic, semantic and textual examination and an examination of the sound recording of the Bykovskys' voices.

The court also reviewed the video version of the Schemes investigation and the conversations between the journalists and the Bykovskys, which formed the basis of the criminal proceedings. The verdict will become effective after the deadline for filing an appeal. The investigation was conducted by the SSU Main Investigation Department under the supervision of the Prosecutor General's Office.

Paratrooper Roman Bykovsky took part in Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He and his wife are from Oryol Oblast of the Russian Federation. In a conversation with Radio Liberty journalists, Bykovsky said that the voice on the SSU recording was not his.

At the same time, his voice is the same as in the recordings of law enforcement officers. Olga Bykovskaya's voice also completely matches the voice on the audio recording posted by Ukraine's Security Service. During a conversation with journalists, Olga reported that her husband was in Sevastopol, being treated in a hospital after being wounded.

Where exactly, she said she did not know. After that, Bykovskaya interrupted the conversation and dropped further calls. Neither Roman Bykovsky nor his wife responded to messages on social media.

After the conversation, Olga deleted her account on Vkontakte, a popular Russian social media site.

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