Isabel Sawkins and Grace Rollison

In Ukraine, no one is safe from the onslaught of the Russian army. Men, women and children are all targets. And there is mounting evidence that Russian troops have been raping civilians since the onset of war last month, with sexual violence serving as part of the Russian army’s attempts to subjugate the Ukrainian population. It is a deliberate strategy. Nothing is off-limits for the Russian army. Gruesome images were recently shared online by Mariana Betsa, ambassador of Ukraine to Estonia, to document what is happening in Ukraine. She shared an image of the body of a three-year-old girl. Betsa said the girl had been raped. Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko has also accused Russian soldiers of such crimes, claiming that: ‘Russian soldiers loot, rape and kill.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, there has been no shortage of historical analogies used to explain the conflict. From Stalinist terrors to the Cold War, Russian and Ukrainian leaders – and politicians from around the world – have sought to make links between the ongoing situation and historical points of reference. But Ukrainian prime minister Volodymyr Zelensky's latest reference point – comparing the conflict to the Holocaust – is a step too far. Last night, Zelensky pleaded with the Israeli Knesset to support Ukraine amidst. He was praised by some for his emotive speech, which Nachman Shai, the minister of diaspora affairs in Israel, described as heart-piercing. Other Israelis were far less sympathetic.