Date

Author

Hidden

Source

Meduza

Preserved copy

Internet Archive

Translated material

“I will live with this black ceiling until the end”

Bucha, Yablonskaya street. Four years ago, dozens of civilians were found killed here. Photo report by Meduza about how the memory of those terrible events was preserved

Bucha is now a small cozy city, very close to the bustling Kyiv, where real spring will soon begin. However, this is not entirely true: it is enough to talk with those who do not forget why Bucha went down in history, and especially with those who experienced the terrible events of the spring of 2022. Bucha is not only someone’s home, but also one of the main symbols of war crimes by the Russian army. In March and April of the first year of the war, when the city was occupied, 381 civilians were brutally killed here, including children. These data were provided in 2024 by the Buchansky city archive; in 2022, Ukrainian authorities spoke of at least 458 deaths in the Buchansky district.

Most of the dead were found on Yablonskaya Street, where the Russian military established their base and concentrated a lot of military equipment. In December 2022, The New York Times identified 36 people killed in the area of this street. And according to the latest data from the archives of the Bucha City Council, verified by Radio Liberty, about 130 civilians died there.

At Meduza's request, photographer Emilien Urbano visited Yablonska Street and its surroundings and spoke with local residents. This photo report is about the memory that is kept by just one small street in Ukraine.

How is this material constructed? To show what lies behind the regularity and calmness of current life in Bucha, we accompanied photographs taken in March 2026 with archival footage. They were taken by photojournalists immediately after the liberation of the Kyiv region and indicate war crimes by the Russian army. You will find photos of 2022 in special tabs. Please be careful: these images may be shocking.

What happened in Bucha at the end of February and March 2022

Bucha found itself on the front line from the first day of the war: to the north of the city are the village of Gostomel and the Antonov airport, where a Russian helicopter assault landed on the morning of February 24. At the end of February, he linked up with the main Russian forces approaching from Belarus.
Russian special forces appeared on the streets of Bucha on February 25. At the same time, the first civilians probably died in the city: civilian vehicles came under fire. However, the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the defense forces did not allow Russian troops to gain a foothold in Bucha.
Russian troops made a new - unsuccessful - attempt to enter the city and advance further to Irpen at the very end of February - beginning of March. But the Ukrainian military stopped them again and burned a column of Russian troops on Vokzalnaya Street in the center of Bucha. In early March, the Russian army entered Irpen, but it did not completely control Bucha itself.
Russian forces entered Bucha again on March 3 from the direction of the village of Vorzel. They created a main base at the glass factory and a second one in the area of Yablonskaya Street, closest to the Bucha River, which separates the city from Irpen.
In the second half of March, the epicenter of the fighting shifted south, towards the Kyiv-Zhitomir highway; fighting continued in Irpen. Bucha became a transit point and rear base for Russian troops, through which they constantly brought reinforcements to Irpen.
Residents of the city traveled there, both along the “green corridors” and independently. As Katerina Ukraintseva, a city council member and Ukrainian territorial defense volunteer, told Meduza, residents were only allowed to go outside on March 8, after which many were able to leave Bucha.
Irpin and Bucha were released at the end of March - beginning of April 2022. Irpen - earlier, on March 28, and Buchu - on March 31. On April 2, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense confirmed the liberation of the entire Kyiv region.

Yablonskaya street is the closest to the bridge over the Bucha River. Across the river is Irpen, a city for which heavy fighting took place throughout March 2022. Bucha became the rear of the Russian group, and Yablonskaya Street became the place where Russian military equipment and checkpoints were concentrated

This is what the northeastern part of Yablonskaya Street looks like now, where one of the Russian checkpoints stood in March 2022. After the liberation of Bucha, at least 10 bodies of dead city residents were found here. Most of them were killed in the first days of the Russian occupation. At that time there was no communication in Bucha, people did not know about the invasion of the city - and many were shot right on the street while going about their business.

The same section of Yablonska Street - April 2, 2022

In the center of the road is 61-year-old Mikhail Kovalenko. He was trying to evacuate with his wife and daughter when Russian soldiers opened fire on them. Mikhail got out of the car with his hands raised, but the shooting did not stop. “He didn’t even have time to put his hands down,” his wife recalled . A bullet pierced her leg as she ran away with her daughter.

On the right in the photo is a car driven by a volunteer from Bucha, Zhanna Kameneva. She helped people get out of the city in the first days of the war. On March 5, Maria Ilchuk, as well as Tamila Mishchenko and her 14-year-old daughter Anya, were in the car with her. That day, Zhanna took the same route as every day, evacuating people. When her van turned onto Yablonskaya Street, Russian soldiers opened fire on them. Everyone who was in the car burned to death.

Love

I live in this house. We were here from the very beginning until March 10th. The Russians monitored us every day; they were [assigned] two people to each house. They were forbidden to go anywhere. We only went out to cook food near the entrance. That's all we were allowed to do. At night we hid in the basement and during the day we also sat there. There were bombs all around. It was cold: in the basement up to 8 degrees Celsius.
The only food we had was what was left in the house [before the invasion]. After March 4 or 5, people began to force their way to the Novus store. It was already broken, but the only food left there was rice and pasta - there was nothing left that could be eaten right away. We only had water that we brought from the spring before the war and what we managed to save.

Laura

On March 3, they fired from some kind of weapon, entered the apartment and killed a young guy. Apparently they suspected something about him. And our guys, the residents of the house, ran, wanted to put out the fire, save him, but they failed. Then his mother came and asked to put his body on a cart [to take it out] - the kind you know, like in supermarkets.
They stood around here, very close, and bombed Irpen around the clock. We women went to negotiate with them on Vokzalnaya Street. It was women, not men: it was safer that way. We asked them to let us out because there were many small children who were sick by that time.
They released us on March 10th. When we were traveling in a convoy, we saw corpses of people lying [in the streets]. There was nothing that could be done: they were walking next to the machine guns.

Place in the garden where the dead were buried

Andrey

The body itself tries to forget this. But sometimes everything comes up because there are still photos and videos on the phone. And at this moment you don’t believe that you survived it.

One of the spontaneous memorials on Yablonska Street

The place of execution of Mikhail Romanyuk near the house at Yablonskaya, 221. On March 6, 2022, he and his relative Alexander Smaglyuk were riding a bicycle to Irpen to visit Alexander’s father. Mikhail died, but Alexander managed to turn into an alley and escaped

Same place in April 2022

Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP / Scanpix / LETA The body of 58-year-old Mikhail Romanyuk on Yablonska Street. April 2, 2022

Faith

Here, in our small corner, there were frequent shellings. When we had the opportunity, we left. There were six of us in a tiny car.
When we returned, all the windows were broken. There was water everywhere in the apartment. The roof collapsed, rain poured in, everything turned black. And it still is. I never asked anyone for help. I know there are so many other problems and so many people to take care of right now. That's why I tolerate it. I will live with this black ceiling until the end. I don't have much time left anyway (I'm 86 years old).
I am Russian myself, from the Smolensk region. I never thought that Russia would attack Ukraine. Never.

Vera next to her house on Vodoprovodnaya Street (crosses Yablonskaya)

The intersection of Vokzalnaya and Yablonskaya streets, where Irina Filkina was killed on March 5, 2022. She tried to get home on her bike

What happened in this place four years ago?

Zohra Bensemra / Reuters / Scanpix / LETA The hand of Irina Filkina, who, according to Buchan’s testimony, was killed by the Russian military on March 5, 2022. This is one of the most famous photographs from Bucha. April 2, 2022

Irina Filkina lived in the village of Mikhailovka-Rubezhovka between Bucha and Vorzel and worked in one of the shopping centers in Kiev.

On March 5, 2022, Irina tried to return home through Bucha on a bicycle. She drove along Vokzalnaya Street from the direction of Irpen, and then turned onto Yablonskaya Street, where the Russian military were located.

According to investigators, they shot Irina at least 15 times. She died on the spot. The investigation's version is confirmed by data obtained with the help of a Ukrainian drone that filmed Irina's path.

The body of Irina Filkina lay on Yablonskaya Street for about a month. Relatives were able to find and identify her thanks to a photo of her hand with a red manicure.

Passerby

Sometimes you walk down this street and everything comes back to your memory. When you see the bullet marks, when people talk about those who were killed here, everything comes back. But otherwise, there is no place more peaceful than home. Even after everything that happened here.

Office building on Yablonskaya, 144, which the Russian military made their base

The courtyard of an office building on Yablonskaya, 144. According to witness testimony and an investigation by The New York Times , on March 4, 2022, eight men were executed here - Anatoly Prikhodko, Andrei Matviychuk, Andrei Verbovsky, Denis Rudenko, Andrei Dvornikov, Svyatoslav Turovsky, Valery Kotenko and Vitaly Karpenko

What was this yard like four years ago?

The bodies of the dead on the ground near the office building on Yablonska Street, 144

All these men were residents of Bucha, had no connection with the army or police, and joined the ranks of the terrorist defense a few days before the execution. Almost all of them lived within walking distance of this yard.

When the Russian military returned to Bucha on March 3, 2022, the men were on duty at their posts. For some time they managed to hide in the house of one of the local residents, but the very next morning the Russian military, conducting a search, discovered the men and took them, including the homeowner, to their base at 144 Yablonskaya Street.

According to Ivan Skyba, the only one of the detainees who managed to survive, they were taken into the yard and shot. “I fell and played dead,” he recalled. “I didn’t move or breathe.” It was cold outside and you could see people breathing.”

Skyba waited until the military left and then fled.

Passerby

They were checking our basement [wanting to find out] if we had weapons. They came every day. One stood outside, the other came in. We have a storage room in the basement to store small things. So they checked to see if we were hiding something.
There were probably 15–20 people sitting in our basement, since people from the neighboring house were also hiding with us. We would go outside when we got permission and make a fire [to cook].

Igor remained in Bucha throughout the occupation with his sick mother. They survived on the food supplies that were in the house before the Russian invasion: potatoes, pasta, homemade pickles. From time to time, Igor made his way to the well, which was located in front of their house, and drew water

House (in the center) on Maxim Ridzanich Street, adjacent to Yablonskaya, in the courtyard of which Russian soldiers shot three people - the owner of the house, 43-year-old welder Roman Gavrilyuk, his 46-year-old brother Sergei and another man. The rest of Roman's family evacuated from Bucha. “My uncle stayed because of the dog, and my father stayed because of the house,” said Roman Gavrilyuk’s son, Nazar. The family's two dogs were also shot

Courtyard of Roman Gavrilyuk - four years ago

Felipe Dana / AP / Scanpix / LETA Irina Gavrilyuk in the courtyard of her house, where the bodies of her husband, brother-in-law and the man killed with them lie. April 4, 2022

Love

A man came out of this house and asked: “Can I cross to the other side?” The Russian standing on this side says: “No problem, you can go. But I can't say what will happen on the other side. That is, you are taking a risk." The man crossed the road. And those military men who were on the opposite side shot him.

The same section of the street, but in the spring of 2022

Rodrigo Abd / AP / Scanpix / LETA The victim died on Maksim Ridzanich Street (adjacent to Yablonska Street). April 6, 2022

Olga

I don't think it's possible to forget this. Then I came to the kindergarten, where there was a bomb shelter. I remember people who were still clean and well dressed at that moment. Then there were three of us left. They [Russian military] occupied all [the premises] above us. They were with machine guns. We took turns sleeping on a narrow bench. It was cold.

In this place on Yablonskaya Street, near house 350, the Russian military shot four men - Alexander Chumak, Maxim Kireev, Dmitry Shkirenkov and Alexander Gutorovich. Alexander Chumak's hands were tied

What was this place like on April 2, 2022?

Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP / Scanpix / LETA The body of one of the dead lay nearby near the fence, it is not visible in this photo

Katerina

Impossible to forget. I don't think it will ever really fade [from memory].
In the courtyard behind our house, at 6 Staro-Yablonskaya Street, they found five burnt bodies, including a child. It turns out that they were lying very close to our house. We sold the plot and built new buildings there. So there is almost nothing left of the original place.