‘No Proof’: UN Rep Walks Back Claim Russian Troops Given Viagra to Rape Ukrainians in Prank Call

The influential UN representative whose horrifying claims of Russian rape were treated as factual by major western media outlets has now admitted in a prank call that she has no evidence for most of them.

The UN Special Representative who claimed without evidence that Russian soldiers were being “supplied with Viagra” to rape Ukrainian women has conceded she has ‘no proof’ of her accusations in a phone conversation with Russian pranksters posing as the head of the Ukrainian legislature’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

In October, western media and governments alike seized on comments by Pramila Patten, the UN’s under-secretary-general and Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, as confirmation of a supposed deliberate campaign of mass rape by Russian soldiers which they’d been alleging for months.

"When women are held for days and raped, when you start to rape little boys and men, when you see a series of genital mutilations, when you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it's clearly a military strategy," Patten reportedly told media.

At the time, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the claims go “beyond reason” and serve as evidence that the West uses “the same patterns in its hybrid wars.” And now Patten has privately admitted there’s a minor problem with her story: there’s no proof any of it happened.

“It’s not my role to go and investigate,” noted Pramila Patten in a call with the Russian comedy duo Vovan and Lexus. Rather, “it is my role to amplify the voices of victims – and I do not miss any opportunity to do that.”

Arguably the most salacious rumor spread by the top UN official – the claim that Russian soldiers are being intentionally supplied sexually enhancing drugs to encourage mass sexual assault against Ukrainians – closely mirrored allegations which the Obama administration used to make the case for overthrowing the government of former Libyan president Moammar Gaddafi.

In 2011, the US Ambassador Susan Rice told a closed session of the UN that Libyan troops were also being equipped with Viagra to encourage mass rape – a now-discredit accusation which was widely disseminated in corporate media even as US military and intelligence officials quietly admitted there was “no evidence” it was true.

In the leaked excerpts of the conversation, Patten acknowledges the parallels between the allegations, but does not seem to have any second thoughts about parroting the latest.

“It’s not my job to make an investigation—I do not have a mandate,” Patten tells the pranksters. “I sit in an office in New York and I have an advocacy mandate. My role is not to investigate.”

“The investigation is going on by the human rights monitoring team and international commission of inquiry,” Patten says, noting that “in their report so far, there is nothing about Viagra.”

Many of the most obscene allegations parroted by Patten seemed to originate with now-discredited sources – most notably disgraced former Ukrainian human rights commissioner Lyudmila Denisova. Patten met with Denisova in May, just weeks before the latter was fired following her admission that she’d “exaggerated” reports of rape by Russian soldiers in order to “achieve the goal of convincing the world to provide weapons and put pressure on Russia.”

But rather than expressing contrition for having popularized fake news about sexual assault, Patten’s only regret seems to be having proven the Russian government right.

“I think [Denisova’s] dismissal has unfortunately provoked… the Russian side,” Patten says. “Every time I meet [Russian officials], it’s all about ‘fake news,’ and they base themselves on the dismissal of Lyudmila.”