London, Nov 24 (IANS): Russian troops, including commanders, ordered Ukrainian women to hang white rags outside their homes so that fellow soldiers would know who to rape, investigators have claimed, according to a media report.

Commanders would 'encourage and order' the troops to rape women in Russian-occupied towns in Ukraine throughout the war, British criminal lawyer Wayne Jordash, who is assisting Kiev's war crimes investigations, said, Daily Mail reported.

A Ukrainian woman, from the village of Berestianka near Kiev, described how a Russian soldier ordered her to hang a white rag outside her house, the report said.

In some areas around Kiev, there is evidence that sexual violence committed by Russian troops involved a level of organisation that it "speaks to planning on a more systematic level", Jordash said.

The 'systematic' nature of the sexual violence committed by Russian troops provides yet more evidence that Vladimir Putin's commanders and soldiers have used rape as a weapon of war in the nine months since the invasion began, Daily Mail reported.

Systematic mass rape campaigns in war use forced impregnation as a tool to ethnically cleanse a nation and psychologically traumatise generations of people.

The children born as a result of wartime rape are often stigmatised as they become a "living reminder of the conflict", academics say.

Women across Ukraine have detailed horrific sexual violence and evidence has now emerged showing Russian commanders have known or even ordered a systematic rape campaign.