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A detailed analysis of what happened in Bucha and the testimony of the inhabitants of Borodyanka (where things can be even worse)

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This is the Meduza mailing list, where we talk about the main events related to the war in Ukraine.

Today we have published a large material about the killing of civilians in Bucha. We tried, as far as possible, to reconstruct in detail the events in this Ukrainian city, as well as to analyze the attempts of Russian propaganda to offer their own (not tenable) explanations of what happened. In this letter, we offer a brief version of this analysis.

What role did Bucha play in the fighting?

The city next door to Gostomel, known as a place of fierce fighting, was on the front line from the first day of the war; Russian special forces appeared there on February 25 (even then came civilian vehicles under fire). The city was completely captured on March 5. Bucha, located across the river from Irpen, became a transit point and a rear base for the troops that were advancing in the area of ​​the Kyiv-Zhitomir highway and fought in Irpen.

Were civilians in Bucha really killed by the Russian military?

It is safe to say that the inhabitants of Bucha died when the city was under the control of Russian forces. Some, apparently, died as a result of indiscriminate shooting during the passage of Russian troops through the city, others as a result of extrajudicial executions after detention. There was no active fighting after the capture of the city in Bucha (unlike other places nearby), and there is no evidence that people found on the streets died as a result of the fighting.

Why did the inhabitants of Bucha die?

Residents of Bucha say that the Russian military was looking for alleged saboteurs and artillery spotters, as well as veterans of the war in Donbass in 2014-2015. There is evidence of killings of people who, during a search, found weapons or working phones. There is a well-known story about the murder of a man by a Russian serviceman who was riding a bicycle with his son to get medicine (according to the teenager, the Russian serviceman aimed at his head, but did not hit him). The exact number of deaths is unknown. The bodies of more than 30 people were found on the streets, while there are many unrecorded burials in the courtyards of houses in the city. In total, in March, according to the employees of the ritual service, more than 300 people were buried in Bucha, who died from various causes.

All the dead, caught in the photo and video, were in civilian clothes, many had their hands tied. There are two videos believed to show the moment of the murder. The first shows how (presumably) the military are next to a man on his knees. After a while, the person falls. Everything happens on Yablonskaya Street - in the very place where the three dead were found . The second video is a drone shot , which shows a man riding a bicycle, turning onto Yablonskaya Street, where an airborne combat vehicle is standing. Smoke appears above the car. Later, at the intersection of Vokzalnaya and Yablonskaya streets, the body of a man with a bicycle was found.

What is Russian propaganda trying to achieve?

Russian propaganda is apparently acting in the same way as it did after the downing of a Malaysian Boeing over Donbass in 2014. Its goal is to sow doubts and make the main version (accusatory of Russia) just one of many. To do this, she puts forward numerous "alternative" versions - which, as in the case of the "Boeing", do not hold water. And here's why ( read the detailed argumentation in our text ):

• The first statements - that the frames with the dead are generally "fake", since the bodies "move" or move in space, have already been refuted more than once .
• Another argument is that the Ukrainians allegedly “for too long” (four days!) did not talk about the massacres, which supposedly means that the bodies appeared on the streets after the Russians retreated. In fact, no more than a day and a half passed from the moment the Russian troops left Bucha until the discovery of the bodies - not to mention the fact that the bodies are visible on satellite images taken long before the retreat of the Russian troops.
• The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation also claimed that the bodies in the photographs “did not stiffen after at least four days, do not have characteristic cadaveric spots.” This allegedly suggests that the corpses are "fresh". In fact, rigor mortis can be imperceptible already a day after the death of a person, and the specificity of the appearance of cadaveric spots is such that it is hardly possible to see them in photographs of dressed people lying on the ground.
• Another version is that civilians in Bucha were killed by “nationalists from the group of Sergei Korotkikh” (known as “Boatswain”; he was an ally of the Russian neo-Nazi Maxim “Tesak” Martsinkevich, then fought in the Donbass in the Azov battalion). They allegedly considered them collaborators because of the white armbands. However, the video that was filmed by members of the Korotkih group in Bucha and formed the basis of this version was filmed (according to the file's metadata and Korotkii himself) on 2 April. The first videos with the dead appeared on the Internet on April 1st .

Let's repeat it again. our detailed analysis of events in Bucha Read here .

What happened in other areas of the Kyiv region?

Recently, Prosecutor General of Ukraine Irina Venediktova said that in another city in the Kyiv region, Borodyanka, the situation with the dead could be even worse than in Bucha. We talked to the residents of Borodyanka and several other settlements about how they survived the occupation and what the Russian military did. Here are some quotes.

Sergei Likhobaba. Borodyanka

“In the first days, they [the military] behaved adequately, no one shot at anyone, but two days later it was completely brutal. They began to bomb the city, residential buildings. Rob shops. The military fired from the tank into the store, took everything out, loaded the loot into the tank and drove on. They destroyed two large central shopping centers and many small stalls.

Every day the attitude towards people became more and more rigid. Nobody stood on ceremony with the civilian population in Borodianka. [A man] came out to look around the corner, did not have time to run into the basement - they could immediately shoot him. The bodies were also not allowed to be taken away. They fired without warning."

Olga (name changed). Settlement between Demidov and Gostomel

“The next day, Russian soldiers entered our houses, every house in the village. They actively sought out former military personnel, ATO participants and those who transmit information about the whereabouts of their equipment.

And I sat, squeezing my son's hand, and with difficulty restrained the desire to scratch their vile faces. And they also congratulated my friend and me on March 8, so now this date simply does not exist in the calendar for me. There will always be March 7th, and then March 9th, because on March 8th I will only see hands on machine guns and berets on my carpet.

Dmitry Zaboev. Demidov

“In the end, they [the Russian military] began to behave very obscenely. When we crossed paths with them, they talked like ordinary gopniks. Some of our guys were beaten, some were kidnapped. With us was a girl, Yulia, an official representative of the Red Cross, they took her away, and we never saw her again. Approximately on the fourth day of the war, our young guys, volunteers, were shot by Russian soldiers. One was shot in the arm, the other in both legs.

So, I did not see [civilians] being shot. But from people who came from more distant villages from the side of Chernobyl, I heard stories that they [the Russian military] shot people.”

No war. Your Medusa