He returned home as a war hero. Behind closed doors, he became a tyrant
CNN
Violence against women and girls was a problem in Ukraine even before Russia launched its full-scale invasion, but more than four years of war has deepened the crisis.
Alisa still remembers the first time her husband hurt her. On leave from the front lines in eastern Ukraine, he was drinking and became aggressive.
“Then he started to strangle me. Even he was frightened by what he had done,” Alisa told CNN.
“If he wasn’t a soldier, I probably wouldn’t have put up with it,” said Alisa, who asked CNN to use a pseudonym because of safety and privacy concerns. “I told myself it wasn’t his fault and that I needed to be there for him. You can’t abandon someone because they saw something that broke them, maybe they just need help.”
But things got worse. Each time her husband came home from the front, he became more abusive and more violent.













