Bucha.April 2022

In February 2022, Russia carried out a massive invasion of Ukraine. Many Ukrainian cities were occupied. Among them, the city of Bucha, where I lived, was occupied. I managed to escape from the city, but many people remained under Russian occupation. More than 1,300 people in Bucha were killed by Russian soldiers. These events were called the «Massacre in Bucha». At the end of March, Russian troops left the city.
Immediately after the de-occupation, I returned to Bucha to see everything with my own eyes, to document it. The war is so monstrous that the survivors are the heroes. In the pictures, my heroes are people who managed to survive the occupation in Bucha.
Through small personal tragedies, I talk about a huge catastrophe that is happening in my country.

On February 27, Vasily saw a broken column of Russian vehicles near the Zhiraf shopping center. Bodies and limbs of Russian soldiers were scattered near the burnt tanks. The Russian column tried to break through to Irpin, but was destroyed between Bucha and Irpin. A few days later, Vasily was walking along the road and suddenly heard an order: «Stand, unbutton your jacket, hands up!». The Russian military fired upward, then near the man’s legs. Vasily was frightened and said: — I am unarmed, I live in Bucha, I am looking for food for dogs. The soldiers released the man. Vasily lives in Lesnaya Bucha and keeps stray dogs.
During the occupation, the man did not have food supplies at home. Potatoes and nettles saved Vasily from starvation. But the dogs had no food.
Vasily noticed that there were periods of calm between skirmishes and ran out during this time. The Russian military fired heavily for intimidation before leaving for lunch from their positions. For Vasily, this was a signal that the time had come to search for food. He went to the garbage cans and looked for leftover food.
The man was running away when he heard the Russians warming up the engine to get back. If you didn’t manage to escape, then you’re dead.
Vasily lived under the constant sight of snipers. From his small house, he saw snipers based on the roofs of nearby multi-storey buildings. There was a howitzer in the sawmill area. When the Russians fired, the house shook. The worst thing was when they fired mines. During the shelling, the dog Raks was killed. The dog suddenly ran out of the yard and came under fire. Vasily crawled down the street on his knees to pick up Rax. The dog lasted three days and died. Vasily wore a white bandage, like the rest of the inhabitants of Bucha. If the Russians did not see the white armband, they started shooting. Sometimes they shot at a person, sometimes in the air, if they were lucky. Vasily’s acquaintances said that they saw how the Russians killed civilians near the school. They were taken out with their hands and eyes tied and shot.
There was a case when Vasily and the dogs were looking for something near the supermarket and three soldiers suddenly appeared. The man was frightened and thought: «I’m finished.» He told the Russians that he was collecting empty crates, along with the dogs Biba, Boba, Palma and Aza. The Russians laughed and let him go: «Go home, Biba, Boba.» They ran into the store and began to throw off the shelves with products. After the de-occupation, Vasily adopted two more dogs. They lay near the store and could not walk from hunger. Now he has two new friends Mukhtar and Kesha.
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

Lyudmila loves spring flowers, she loves Serik the prankster and nine other cats of hers. With cats, she survived throughout the occupation in Bucha. The woman recalls the Russian occupation as an absolute hell. The city had black skies due to fires and shelling. A warehouse with glass containers was on fire in the next street. From there for three days there was a black fumes and bottles exploded. Near Lyudmila’s house there was a gun that the Russians fired at the Ukrainian positions. There was a cry «Vasya, come on!» and after that volleys. The shells flew past the windows towards Irpen.
There was a glow from the side of Irpin.
A sniper was sitting in a high-rise building opposite Lyudmila’s house. The woman was afraid that they would notice her, carefully move around the yard, she hid behind the shed. The neighbors said: — Don’t hide! They know you live here. Their drone constantly flies and scouts everything.
Once a tank flew into a neighboring yard and crushed the fence. The noise from this was so terrible. The owner of the house jumped out of the window in fright. There were no food supplies. The only salvation was potatoes.
Lyudmila and her neighbor built a two-brick oven and baked potatoes there. There was not enough water, we had to collect rainwater and melted snow in buckets. There was no electricity, gas and communications. Therefore, the son could not get through and find out about the fate of Lyudmila. One day he called the neighbors. They brought the phone to Lyudmila. The son shouted into the phone: Mommy, Mommy …
The woman did not go down to the basement to hide from shelling. Lyudmila was afraid that the house would collapse and she would not be able to get out from under the rubble.
During the shelling, she went outside and sat there. Sometimes Lyudmila was outside all night despite the sub-zero temperature and cold. When a woman spent the night at home, she covered herself with three blankets, and next to her under the blanket lay heating pads: Zhuchok, Druzhok, Grey, Snezhka, Chernomordin, Serik and three more cats.
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

Tamara lives with her wheelchair-bound husband in a multi-storey building on the eighth floor. During the occupation, fourteen people lived in their entrance. Everyone cooked food together, combined food supplies and cooked soups. There was no water, communication, gas and electricity. Near the entrance, trees were cut down and used for firewood. The Russians forced the locals to wear white bandages on their hands.
When Russian soldiers first entered Tamara’s yard, they started shooting at the balconies. All residents hid, but one neighbor left the entrance. They shot at him, the wounded man tried to escape, the Russians riddled him. There was a sniper in the house opposite. He started shooting at people so that they would not watch through the windows.The bullet pierced Tamara’s window and passed over the woman’s head without hitting her. The soldiers destroyed all the cars in the district, robbed the shops.
Before retreating, the Russians shot at everyone they met on their way. Russian soldiers shot two men who were sitting in a car listening to the radio. After the Russian troops left Bucha, Tamara’s neighbor was found at the base of the repair kit with an open stomach.
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

After the Russians captured Bucha, Irina was afraid to go outside. The woman sat in the house with her sick mother and waited for a sad fate. She lived on Yablonka Street, as the locals affectionately called Yablonskaya, which later became Death Street.Four days after the start of the occupation, a neighbor came to Irina to draw water from the well. She said: — The Russians allow the locals to walk along the street with a white armband. Irina began to go out into the yard to cook food on a fire and draw water.
Russian soldiers settled in two neighboring houses. The soldiers did not want to live in Irina’s modest house. An armored personnel carrier was placed in her yard, covered with rags. Russians often came to Irina’s yard for water with plastic square canisters. She talked with the military, told them that she was scared. They replied that they were also afraid. The soldiers were really afraid, especially those who entered Bucha first. It is impossible to get used to shelling.
On March 18 the soldiers had a rotation, they were replaced by others. The places where the Russians parked cars were hit pointwise and there were casualties among the soldiers. The girl did not see the corpses of the Russians, their bodies were not lying on the street, but their losses were great. When she cooked food on the street, she overheard the conversations of the military. Before the retreat, the military learned the phrase in Ukrainian, «Boys don’t shoot, we’re ours.» In the early days, Irina accepted them as victims of circumstances, until she saw what atrocities they commit. Near the neighboring house, the Russians killed three men and buried them there. Then they killed an acquaintance Dima, for sitting near the house and smoking.
The Kadyrovites expelled the tenants from the house, which stands on the corner of the street. People came out with their hands up, a grenade was thrown into the house, and the owner of the house was shot in front of his family. The man’s body lay on the street for a month. Irina saw through the window how the soldiers were burying a neighbor who lived in a neighboring yard.
Irina’s mother could not get medical help, she died on the fourteenth of March. Irina asked two men living in the basement of a multi-storey building to help with the burial. The woman received permission from the military to bury her mother in the yard. While they were digging the grave, a submachine gunner stood over them. When I photographed Irina, her mother’s body was still in the garden.
When the woman was left alone, she moved to a safer place, the basement of a multi-storey building. Sometimes she returned home to cook food, change clothes. Once the Russians came to the basement and forbade them to go to Yablonskaya. They said the street was under fire. The woman believes that the soldiers did not want the locals to see the scale of their crimes. The street was littered with dead bodies. Irina could not believe that Bucha had been liberated and this nightmare was over, she was crying when Ukrainian troops with a flag entered.
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

The woman lives on Steklozavodskaya Street. All the time of the occupation, she was in Bucha. On March 10, her niece went missing. Her family hoped that the woman was alive and perhaps hiding somewhere. After the de-occupation of Bucha, the niece was found in a mass grave. According to the mayor of Bucha, about 280 people were buried in a mass grave.
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

 

Dima lives in Bucha in a high-rise building with his mother, father and grandfather. When the occupation began, they spent almost all the time in the basement, hiding from the shells and the cold. All the windows in Dima’s apartment were broken because of the shelling. On March 16, Russian soldiers arrived at Dima’s house.
The soldiers broke down the doors and searched every apartment. It was impossible to hide from them. The soldiers were quartered in the boy’s multi-storey building, and seven tanks were placed in the yard.
The Russians shot Dima’s neighbors, and his parents were told to bury the people. The soldiers were given three hours to dig out the frozen earth in the yard. Grandpa and Dima’s dad buried two guys in the yard, a neighbor’s grandparents and a young woman they didn’t know,
On the third floor, in an empty apartment, there lived an affectionate cat Tyson, who was looked after by Dima. The Russians fired from this apartment, it was very loud. When the soldiers left, the apartment was strewn with shell casings. Before the retreat, the Russian military wanted to kill the residents of the house. They became unwitting witnesses to Russian crimes. The Russians drove Dima and everyone else into the cellar, people heard automatic bursts, they fell and clung to the floor. Leaving Bucha, Russian troops fired at the roofs of residential buildings, wanting to destroy them in the end.
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

 

Olga was in Bucha throughout the occupation. Most of the residents of the multi-storey building were evacuated. Olga and a few other neighbors stayed in Bucha. At first they slept in the basement, then in the apartment on the floor. Russian soldiers broke down the entrance doors to apartments, searched and robbed. The invaders lived in apartments, and military equipment was driven into the yard. They destroyed all the cars of local residents parked near the house. Residents were sometimes allowed to go outside. Once the occupiers shot Olga’s neighbor. He was forbidden to leave the apartment, but a few days later the man ran out of water and went out to get water. This was the reason for the execution. Olga was worried about her daughter and grandson, who lived on the other side of Bucha. There was no connection in the city and the woman did not know if they were alive. After the de-occupation, she learned that they had survived.
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

 

The man lives on Yablonskaya street. From March 5 to March 31, Bucha was under the control of Russian troops. The resident of Yablonska spent the entire time of the occupation at home. He often had to sit in the basement to hide from shelling. Russian soldiers lived in neighboring yards.
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

 

Throughout the occupation, Ivan lived in Lesnaya Bucha at home. One day, a sniper shot people in front of his eyes. According to the BBC, more than a thousand civilians were killed in the Buchansk region during the month of Russian occupation. According to the Ukrainian police, about 650 people were shot dead by the Russian military.
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

 

A year before the large-scale offensive, Misha and his parents moved from Lugansk. They fled the war to the northern part of Ukraine.
The second time the war found the boy in Bucha. On March 5, his father’s sister died.She and her husband tried to leave the occupied Bucha for Irpin, but their car was shot down by soldiers. The woman was mortally wounded in the chest and head.
The boy’s father grieved greatly over the death of his sister. He didn’t get out of bed for a week. Misha and his mother tried to pull his father out of this state. They asked: «Come on, get up, we need to survive, now there is a war, we need you.» Misha’s mother did not allow herself and others to cry when it was scary. I didn’t want to hurt my son. She told the neighbors, if someone wants to cry, go home and cry there, but don’t dare in front of the child!
At first they slept in the basement, then in the corridor of the neighbor’s apartment, since there is a wide crossbar (the safest place). If
heard an explosion, then everyone jumped up and sat down under the crossbar. They kept the candle burning all night. During the day they read books aloud, in the evening they prayed, listened to the radio. Once in the basement they were quietly listening to Ukrainian news, and through a small window came the sound of another radio. Soldiers were listening to Russian news in the street. Sur.
There was a sniper on the top floor, there was an apartment with the ability to go to the roof. After the de-occupation, more than a dozen empty vodka bottles were found on the table. The Russian soldiers were paranoid, they were afraid that they were being followed, so they disabled tablets, phones, laptops, shot at security cameras on porches and poles.
Russian soldiers searched all the apartments, broke down the doors in a multi-storey building, but they did not touch Mishin’s apartment. The military settled in the apartments they liked. There they drank, slept, crap and robbed. On March 30, at four in the morning, the Russians jumped out of a multi-storey building, threw the looted belongings of civilians out of the tanks and left. The whole yard was littered with things, and near the garbage cans lay the winter uniform of Russian soldiers.
Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

 

The woman and her husband lived on Yablonskaya Street during the occupation. Their house is located in a place remote from the infrastructure. People were very hungry, there was no water and food. The soldiers did not let the family out to get water and food. When the Russian military went on rotation, the woman and her husband collected army dry rations.
Genocide Scholars produced an independent report at the end of May 2022. It states that the massacres, executions and other crimes in the Bucha region are in the nature of genocide.
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

 

On March 5, Bucha was already occupied by Russian soldiers and heavy fighting was going on. Residents of Steklozavodskaya Street tried not to go outside, so as not to fall under fire. But Vladimir had to go out into the yard to walk the dog. Suddenly, a Kadyrovite came out from around the corner and aimed his machine gun. The man jumped into the entrance, at that moment there was a loud whistle and an explosion. The multi-storey building shuddered powerfully, a shell hit it.
Vladimir jumped out of the entrance, looked up and saw that the upper floors were on fire. He walked around the house on the other side and photographed the fire.
At that time, it was deadly dangerous to go out onto the road, because the Russians shot at the locals without understanding. If you caught the eye of the soldiers, then you can assume that you are dead. Vladimir posted the photo in local chats and was later published by the BBC.
One day, Vladimir went out onto the balcony and saw how Russian soldiers shot a man near the entrance. At that moment, the man heard a sound and saw that a bullet was sticking out of the railing. The sniper wanted to remove the witness and fired at him with a silencer from a neighboring house. They tried to kill Vladimir more than once, so his balcony was shot.
The man lives on Yablonskaya Street, the Russians killed the residents of his house, destroyed cars in the yard. During the shelling, the inhabitants of the house did not go down to the basement, they waited for their fate. So that Russian warriors would not burst into the entrance at night, they carefully closed the door.
In the first half of March, Vladimir walked with his neighbors around the district, collecting corpses on the streets. There were people who died of natural causes and those who were killed by the Russians.
There was a shuttle bus No. 422 on Steklozavodskaya Street where bodies were put into it. When the bus was filled with bodies, the Russians allowed them to be taken out for burial. And then it was forbidden to take out the dead. The locals began to bury the dead near the house.
Once the Russian military called Vladimir to identify a dead man. They said: «Confirm that this is a local resident.»
The man saw that the dead man was a Russian and said: «This is not ours.» The soldiers said that Vladimir would take and bury him. Vladimir replied: “Why should I bury the Russian dead with our dead? Do what you want, bury yourself.»
When the last green corridor was opened, the man left Bucha through the city of Vorzel. He traveled to Vorzel on foot with his dog. When hi passed by the Russian checkpoint, the Kadyrovites wanted to shoot Vladimir near the quarry, but they liked the dog and left the man alive.
Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

 

Konstantin has been living in Bucha since 1984 at his mother’s house on Vokzalnaya Street. On February 27, 2022, a convoy of Russian vehicles was moving past his house towards Irpin. Tanks drove along the road in two rows, and infantry marched along the sidewalks. They stopped in front of Konstantin’s house and made several shots without aimed shots towards the Ukrainian positions at the Zhiraf shopping center. After that, the Russians continued on their way.
The Ukrainians knocked out a Russian tank and the Russians began to retreat. They retreated chaotically. Bayraktar quietly flew up, hit the column from two sides. A congestion formed and the equipment could not move. After that, the Ukrainian troops finished off the middle part of the column. Konstantin at this time was hiding between two houses. Since childhood, he was fond of fireworks and pyrotechnics and was not afraid. The houses on the street were badly damaged. Some were completely destroyed due to strong explosions, since the Russian equipment was with full ammunition. Constantine’s house was damaged, but remained intact.
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

 

Alexander worked as a security guard at the Antonov airport. February 24 was the day he was on duty at the airport. The fight for the airport unfolded before the eyes of a man. On February 25, Kadyrovites were already standing near the airport. From the first days of the Russian offensive, the city was occupied.
The man was under the occupation of the Russians. He lived in Gostomel, near the airport. Kadyrovtsy robbed, but mostly jewelry. Sometimes food was provided. But when the Russians came, it got much worse. They robbed everything, refrigerators, appliances.
Alexander moved to his daughter in Bucha and spent the entire time of the occupation there. An aerial bomb hit their house, part of the house collapsed. The apartment where the man lived was damaged, but the walls remained and he stayed in it.
Between Gostomel and Bucha, the Kadyrovites set up a checkpoint. Opposite was a children’s camp. There, Russian soldiers set up a place for torture in the basement. After the de-occupation, the bodies of men with their hands tied were found in the basement. Some people were shot in the legs, others were shot in the head and heart. Two friends of Alexander died there. Valera and his nephew Viktor were shot. They lived in Gostomel and wanted to go to Bucha. At the checkpoint they were stopped by Russian soldiers and then shot.
After the de-occupation, Alexander returned to Gostomel to see his housing.
He saw that the residential quarter was destroyed. The surviving apartments were looted, the cellars were opened, the garages were burned down. The man’s apartment also suffered, all things were turned upside down. On the floor of the balcony there is a hole and ashes from a fire, where the Russians were preparing to eat.
Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

 

Rustem’s house is located on Vokzalnaya Street. A convoy of Russian equipment was smashed there. At that moment, he was hiding in the basement with his son, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law and friends with a child. An infantry fighting vehicle was blown up near the yard. A strong fire started as a result of which the garage with Rustem’s car burned down. Acrid smoke poured into the house. People went out into the street and saw how neighboring houses were lit up one by one. Having survived a terrible day, the inhabitants of Bucha thought that the offensive was over and the Russians retreated. But on March 4, Russian soldiers drove into a neighboring house. The inhabitants of the house managed to escape to Rustem.
All night people hid from the military, and on the fifth day the soldiers came to Rustem. The soldiers knocked on the door, the residents shouted: «Here, old people and children, we are unarmed!» . The Russians kicked everyone out of the house, lined up, checked the documents and broke the phones. One phone miraculously remained intact. Rustem’s wife mechanically stuffed it into her bag. They were given five minutes to pack. The owner of the house wanted to take the cat Snezhka. He stuffed it into a bag, but she, frightened, jumped out and ran away. The soldiers moved everyone to the basement of a multi-storey building on a nearby street. There were many Russians — a whole horde. BMDs, BMPs stood in every yard, the neighbors on Sadovaya Street had a command vehicle. Rustem spent several nights in the basement of a multi-storey building, after which he asked the Russians to let them go. The soldiers released ten people, including a girl with a three-year-old child. But one family was turned back and kept in the basement for another four days.
Rustem’s family went through the floodplain to Irpen, where they spent the night. Irpen was bombed all night long, waiting for the morning, the inhabitants of Bucha continued on their way. On the way, they were picked up by volunteers and taken to the bridge, then sent to Kyiv. After spending a month in Poltava with his brother, the man returned to the de-occupied Bucha. The cat Snowball was waiting for him on the threshold, in the house there were several dozen empty bottles of wine. The house was littered with soldiers’ boots and a clumsy inscription in the room «This is an order sorri.»
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

 

During the occupation, the woman lived with her son in Bucha on Yablonskaya. Later this street became known as Death Street. It had the largest number of victims. Dead people lay on the street, shot neighbors, Russians lived in almost every house. Soldiers evicted Local residents to other houses, driven into basements. The Russians broke into the gates and fences of every house, for complete control over the locals, as well as in order to hide military equipment. The soldiers covered the tanks with cut treetops, branches, rags, boards. Thus, they hid equipment from the drone. A woman with an adult son sat in the basement all the time. She was very worried that the Russians would find them and shoot her son.
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022.

 

During the occupation, the woman and her daughter were always in Bucha. In peacetime, her daughter worked as a doctor. When hostilities began, my daughter said: “Mom, I won’t go anywhere, when the war is over, people will ask me where I was.”
So they stayed at home on Yablonskaya. At the intersection near the house, local residents began to flock, mostly men. They blocked the road and made a living wall. A Russian tank drove up to them, the men did not let the Russians pass, they began to wave their hands «Move!», the Russians backed up. They were absent for two days, then a convoy of Russian vehicles entered.
Opposite the woman’s house, the Russians set up a checkpoint, dug trenches. They dragged sandbags, put the tank and themselves were constantly on both sides of the road. The tank sometimes went somewhere at night, but always returned.
In the neighboring two-story house, in the basement, there was a billiards table, a fireplace, the Russians arranged drinking and partying there. A sniper sat in the attic and watched the area. In the evening, drunken warriors usually arranged entertainment for accuracy. They fired from a tank at a high brick tower in the boiler room, which was located 30 meters from the intersection. Everything is in smoke, rumble, rattle. Soldiers robbed houses, took whatever they wanted. Beyond the crossroads, on the railroad tracks, lay a dead man. He was not a local, for a long time they could not identify him. Then a phone was found under the body. It turned out that he was carrying food from Irpin and to someone in Buchu. In jars of compote and jam, he was a kind man.
The soldiers understood the Ukrainian language well. Once a woman dared to take food to a local resident who was starving, went up to the soldiers and said: «You can shoot me, but I’ll go anyway.» They did not touch, they said: «Aunt, go where you need to.» When she walked along Yablonskaya, she saw clothes, legs, and someone’s head lying around. The old people who lived during the occupation in neighboring houses survived. A deceased woman from Vyshgorod was brought to the neighbors, she was shot dead by the Russians because of her tattoo.
Photo: Ukraine. Bucha. April 2022

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