Ukraine’s state railway monopoly, Ukrzaliznytsia, has introduced security guards on some of its most popular routes after a woman was beaten by a man who tried to rape her on a train nearly a month ago.
Anastasia Lugova, 28, a television host, was en route from Mariupol to Kyiv in the early hours of Aug. 1 when a stranger broke into her compartment, beat her, and tried to rape her in front of her 6-year-old son.
Photos of her severely bruised face and broken jaw and teeth sparked an outcry across Ukraine, prompting calls for increased security on trains. On social media, other women began sharing their own stories of being sexually harassed on trains.
Then, on Aug. 25, Infrastructure Minister Vladyslav Krykliy announced that Ukrzaliznytsia will have 40 paramilitary security guards on board 10 trains running between Kyiv and Mariupol, Uzhgorod, Zaporizhia, Truskavets, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Lviv, Kherson, Odesa and Pokrovsk.
The country will also gradually increase the number of guards and CCTV cameras installed on trains, the minister wrote on his Telegram channel.
Lugova, who was recently discharged from the hospital but is still recovering, welcomed the move. However, she said that security guards should appear on all trains as soon as possible since perpetrators now know which trains are not protected. In a video posted on her Facebook page on Aug. 26, she also urged railway officials to install panic buttons in all compartments, as well as to teach train conductors self-defense.
When a man broke into her compartment in the early hours of Aug. 1, hit her and tried to rape her, Lugova had no one to help her.
Anastasia Lugova as she looks usually and as she looked after the assault by a man on a Mariupol-Kyiv train on the night of Aug. 1, 2020 (Facebook)
“While I calmed my son down, the naked man with an erection stroked and kissed my legs. He was saying, ‘Be a smart girl, be a good girl, and you won’t be hurt any more,’” she wrote in a viral Facebook post from Aug. 1.
She managed to convince the man to move to his compartment, saying she didn’t want to have sex in front of her son. When her son began crying, she used it as an excuse to escape. She told him the child could wake up other passengers.
“The man let me go, but told me to come back, otherwise he would find me and it would be worse,” she wrote.
She rushed into her compartment, grabbed her son and ran barefoot to a train conductor, who was asleep and didn’t understand what was happening. The man chased them. She ran into another train carriage and began screaming and knocking on the doors of the compartments. At night, nobody reacted, she wrote.
Eventually, Lugova and her son found protection with another conductor. The alleged attacker, Vitaly Rudzko, 45, was detained by police as soon as the train arrived in Kyiv. He had a prior criminal record. A court arrested Rudzko for two months.
The incident once again brought the issue of violence against women to the forefront of public discussion in Ukraine. Many called for the authorities to implement more measures to make public transport safe for women.
On social media, some women shared their own stories of being sexually harassed by men while traveling on trains under the hashtag #більшенеможнамовчати (Can’t stay silent anymore). Others suggested having separate carriages for women and men.
Until 2013, Ukrzaliznytsia had police officers on trains. However, it deemed them ineffective, as they mostly just filed reports on people smoking in non-smoking areas.
