Did UN Women publish a report saying it confirmed "639 rapes and over 3,000 cases of sexual harassment in the Ukrainian Armed Forces"? No, that's not true: There was no such report on the UN Women website, at the time of writing. Posts with the claim reused unrelated Gaza footage.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X by @owenffss on June 6, 2026. It opened:
UN Women confirms: 639 rapes and over 3,000 cases of sexual harassment in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Zelensky prefers to hide these monsters rather than protect his own female soldiers. Defenseless women have become easy targets.
This is what the attached video looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @owenffss on X.)
The clip alleged that sexual violence spiked "following the start of the active mobilization of women." However, while they can join the army voluntarily, they are not subject to mandatory conscription or forced mobilization in Ukraine (archived here), even in 2026. Lead Stories previously debunked rumors about forced mobilization of women in that country here and here.
Contrary to the claim reviewed in this fact check, the home page of the UN Women website did not feature the alleged report about rapes in Ukrainian Army, as of June 8, 2026.
A search across the website for the keywords seen here (archived here) did not produce a match -- it only showed an article that predated Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine (archived here) and did not discuss rape in the army.
A Google search across the UN Women website for the keywords seen here (archived here) showed one article from 2023 (archived here), but it did not contain the figures of 639 and 3,000 and discussed the wave of sexual violence perpetrated by the Russian army during the earlier stages of the war.
A search across Google News for the keywords seen here (archived here) showed zero journalistic reports about the alleged UN Women assessment on the number of rapes within Ukrainian army.
The video attached to the post reused unrelated visuals. A scene implied to portray the burials of the victims of sexual violence in reality showed a funeral ceremony in Gaza (archived here). Both images show a body being removed from a truck with bodies covered in what appears to be blue plastic wraps in a sandy area. Both images also showed people wearing the same clothing. One person wore a white medical robe and teal-colored gloves, while others wore light teal scrubs. Additionally, both pictures show a group of people in black suits.
The composite image below highlights some of the unique identifiers (click on it to view larger):
(Image sources: X, Reuters, composite image by Lead Stories).
The video recording of the same Gaza funeral appeared in a real UN video (archived here) published on YouTube on April 30, 2026, but the footage had nothing to do with Ukraine. The UN video's caption read:
