On February 12, 2025, during the talk show "Objectively" on the ONT channel, political analyst Yuriy Voskresensky accused Ukraine of pushing its women into prostitution as a consequence of defending against military aggression.
"What they are doing to their people now—killing men and moving women into brothels. These are not propaganda clichés. We have, for example, the so-called reputable German publication Die Welt. It stated that there are 400,000 ladies of the night working in Berlin, 200,000 of whom are Ukrainian. And that's just in Berlin alone! I'm citing data from the German press."
In 2024, Die Welt published an article about the German sex industry. A social worker, in an interview with the publication, stated that in her estimation, the number of Ukrainian women involved in prostitution in Berlin increased after the start of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine.
"In the past, Ukrainian women were not very present in this sector. Most of the women we work with in Berlin actually come from Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary, and now also from Ukraine. I would say that in brothels, they now make up about 50 percent. Many very young women have come here because of the war," the article states.
Among the reasons for this, the interviewee cites women's lack of awareness of their rights and the exploitation of their vulnerable situation by men. However, the article does not mention the number of women involved in prostitution.
However, the estimate of 400,000 women involved in prostitution does appear in the German press. In January 2024, Die Tagesschau reported on the issue. However, that estimate referred to the entire country, not just Berlin, and was clearly labelled as an approximate figure.
