«Unspeakable, deliberate cruelty»
Four stories of Ukrainians who survived the atrocities of the Russians
Four stories of Ukrainians who survived the atrocities of the Russians
The international human rights organization Human Rights Watch has recorded numerous crimes committed by the Russian military in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv and other regions. Rape, brutal killings of civilians, inhuman torture – representatives of the organization interviewed victims and witnesses of these events and published several verified stories of Ukrainians.
«The cases we have documented are unspeakable, deliberate cruelty and violence against the civilian population of Ukraine. Rape, murder and other acts of violence against people should be investigated as war crimes»
– Hugh Williamson, director of Human Rights Watch in Europe and Central Asia, is convinced.
Rape in Kharkiv
On March 13, the Russian military beat and repeatedly raped Olga (not real name), a 31-year-old woman in Malaya Rogan, a village in the Kharkiv region controlled by Russian troops at the time.
Russian soldiers entered the village on February 25, Olga said. On that day, about 40 villagers, mostly women and girls, were in the basement of a local school. She was there with her 5-year-old daughter, mother, 13-year-old sister and 24-year-old brother.
Around midnight on March 13, a Russian soldier broke into the school. He had a machine gun and a pistol with him, went into the basement and ordered everyone to line up. Olga stood holding her sleeping daughter. He told her to give him the girl, but she refused. The soldier told her brother to come forward and ordered the rest of the group to kneel, or he said he was shooting everyone in the basement.
The soldier ordered her brother to follow him to help find food. They left and returned in an hour or two. The soldier sat on the floor.
«People began to ask if it was possible to go to the toilet, and he allowed them in groups of two and three, " – said Olga. After that, people began to settle down for the night. A Russian soldier approached Olga and ordered her to follow him
The soldier took the woman to a classroom on the second floor, where he pointed a gun at her and told her to undress. She says: “He forced me to have oral sex. He kept a gun to my temple all the time or inserted it in my face. Twice he fired at the ceiling and said it would give me more “motivation."
Olga said that she was very cold at school, and asked if she could get dressed, but the soldier allowed her to wear only outerwear and forbade her to wear underwear and pants. “While I was getting dressed, the soldier told me that he was Russian, called me and said that he was 20 years old. He said that I reminded him of the girl he went to school with, " – said Olga.
The soldier told the woman to go to the basement and get things so she could stay with him in class. She refused. “I knew my daughter would cry if she saw me," she said. The soldier took out a knife and told her to do as he ordered if she wanted to see her child again. The soldier raped her again, put a knife to her throat and cut the skin on her neck. He also cut her cheek with a knife and cut off some of her hair. The soldier hit her in the face with a book and slapped her several times.
At around 7:00 a.m. on March 14, a soldier told Olga to find him a pack of cigarettes. They went down together. The woman asked the guard to give the soldier some cigarettes. After the soldier received the cigarettes, he left.
That day, she and her family walked to Kharkiv, where volunteers provided her with first aid. They moved to a bomb shelter. “I’m lucky to be alive," – says Olga. She said that the authorities were preparing a criminal case, which they planned to submit to the Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine.
Executions in Chernihiv region
On February 27, the Russian military seized six civilians in the village of Stary Bykiv, Chernihiv Oblast, and shot them. A resident of the neighboring village of Novyi Bykiv spoke with relatives of the four killed men. She told Human Rights Watch that a bridge between Novy Bykov and Stary Bykov was blown up on February 27, and Russian troops shelled both villages. Then a column of Russian armored vehicles entered Stary Bykov.
«Most people hid in their basements due to the shelling, and soldiers went from door to door.
The fighters took six men from three different families out of the house. One mother lost both of her sons. Another boy was about 20 years old, his name was Bogdan, I know his mother well, she told me that the soldiers told her to wait near the house while they took her son… to interrogate. The same was said to other families. Instead, they took the six men away, took them to the far end of the village and shot them.»
The fighters took six men from three different families out of the house. One mother lost both of her sons. Another boy was about 20 years old, his name was Bogdan, I know his mother well, she told me that the soldiers told her to wait near the house while they took her son… to interrogate. The same was said to other families. Instead, they took the six men away, took them to the far end of the village and shot them.»
– remembers Tatiana.
Victoria, the mother of one of the dead men, told the details of the crime:>
«My son Bohdan and brother-in-law Sasha were taken away. We were in the basement, so we didn’t see. They went out to smoke. Then our neighbor ran up and said that he saw how they took Bohdan, Sasha and a few other guys.
They told us not to worry that they would be scared a little and then let go. We walked about 50 meters… and heard gunshots. It was about 18:20»
They told us not to worry that they would be scared a little and then let go. We walked about 50 meters… and heard gunshots. It was about 18:20»
Victoria said that the next day she and her sister went out into the field and saw the bodies lying near the house.
«The three lay on one side of the building, but they were not my son or brother-in-law. We went the other way and saw … They were lying there … They were shot in the head, their hands were tied behind their backs. I looked at my son’s body, his pockets were empty, he had no phone, no keys, no documents»
Victoria asked the military at the checkpoint for permission to remove the bodies, but they refused.
On March 7, Victoria said, she again asked the fighters for permission to remove the bodies. At the checkpoint they were told to go to the cemetery, promised to bring the bodies … All the neighbors came, 75 people … They buried everyone in one day, in separate graves».
Russian soldiers also took all the firewood from the villagers, leaving them with nothing to cook or heat their homes.
Бучанська різанина
On March 4, in Bucha, 30 kilometers northwest of Kyiv, the Russian military executed a man and threatened to kill four more, said a teacher who witnessed the murder.
She said she heard gunfire around 7 a.m. and saw three Russian armored vehicles and four KamAz trucks driving down her street. The teacher was hiding in the basement with her two dogs when she heard a broken window and then someone knocked on the door of her house. Voices from outside said [in Russian]: “Get out now, otherwise we will throw a grenade».
«There were three men on the street, two Russian soldiers and a commander. They took my phone and checked it, and then told me to take the documents and go with them, " – said a resident of Bucha. As she walked down the street with the soldiers, she saw that they were also gathering her neighbors.
She said that the fighters took about 40 people to the square, collected their phones, checked their documents, and asked which of them was in territorial defense or self-defense.
«Two women were asked to go to the toilet. One of them was pregnant. I went with them. The soldier showed us the way to the toilet, which was near the building, it seems, there was their headquarters. The building was long. Along the wall on the other side we saw a large puddle of blood, “the woman recalls.
According to her, they waited in the square for hours in very cold weather.
According to her, they waited in the square for hours in very cold weather.
«At one point they brought one young man, then four more. The soldiers ordered them to take off their boots and jackets. They forced them to kneel on the side of the road. Russian soldiers took off their T-shirts. One was shot in the back of the head. He fell. The women shouted. The other four men were just on their knees. The commander told the rest of the people in the square: “Don’t worry. You are all normal – and this is dirt. We are here to clean you from dirt," – recalls a resident of Bucha.
She said that a few hours later the soldiers took people home. The other four men remained on their knees when she left. The woman said that when she managed to leave the city on March 9, the young man’s body was still lying where he had been shot.
Another Bucha resident, Dmytro, 40, said he and his family fled the city on March 7 due to constant shelling. According to him, people did not know any safe ways to evacuate, so they walked, wrapped in white sheets and waving white sheets – about five kilometers to the village of Vorzel.
Once in Vorzel, they settled for two nights in the basement of a two-story house with a group of locals. Dmytro said that there was a woman with them in the basement who had chest and leg injuries. Other people in the basement told him that she had been shot the day before when Russian soldiers broke into the same basement and threw a smoke grenade inside. Several people panicked and ran out into the street, where Russian soldiers shot them. The woman was injured and a 14-year-old child was shot in the head and died.
Dmytro said that the woman also died the next day, March 8. He and several locals buried her near a bomb shelter.
Executions in Irpen
On March 4, the Russian military threatened to execute a man and his son in the village of Zabuchcha near Irpen. A resident of the village said that Russian troops entered the village, where he and 10 people, including a family from Irpen, hid in the basement of the house. He said 13 soldiers entered his house to search him.
«The soldiers asked about my 34-year-old son, who is in the territorial defense. He went out to meet them. They asked who was in the house, and then they searched the house and turned everything upside down… They found my hunting rifle and a bottle of gasoline in the backyard, ” – the man recalls.
The commander of the Russian military ordered his subordinates to shoot both his husband and his son.
«They took us outside. One of the soldiers opposed. They took us back and ordered my son to strip naked because they wanted to find nationalist tattoos in him, ”the man recalls.
After that, the Russians looted all the neighboring houses and left.
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