Rudyk heard a story of a women being raped in front of her family members, as well as one of a woman being repeatedly visited and raped over many days.

“I wish he had killed me instead of what he did,” 83-year-old retired school teacher Vera told CBS News’ senior foreign correspondent Holly Williams, who visited the small village in southern Ukraine where she lives shortly after the Russian soldiers who had been occupying it left.

Visibly distressed, Vera said that a Russian fighter from Donetsk had raped her in her house with her disabled husband in the next room.

“I asked [the soldier], ‘What do you have against our government? We weren’t the ones who started the war.’ God, I wish I hadn’t said that. I tempted fate. He said I was too smart,” Vera told CBS News. “He said get up. I got up. He grabbed me by the back of the neck. He squeezed it. I started to choke. I couldn’t breathe. He asked me who was in the house. I said only my sick old man, no one else… and then it started.”