Inaugurating a Reign of Terror on Yablunska

Death in Bucha's Gray Zone, part 7: 

Inaugurating a "Reign of Terror" on Yablunska

July 10, 2022

(rough, incomplete)

Perhaps the best case for a genocidal Bucha Massacre came on March 5, when Russian tanks rolled in to northeast Yablusnka street and "a Russian sniper began firing on anything moving."  Counting those with clear locations, at least 18 civilians were killed here between March 4 and mid-day on March 10 - most of them visually confirmed and geolocated - with as many as 15 of them on the 5th. 

I started with great skepticism over these killings pinned on Russia, but having learned more of the military situation, the scope for any "false-flag" operations appears quite limited. Russian forces are probably responsible for the vast bulk of the violence examined here, but not all of it. Some clear war crimes are described, including at least one field execution and several shootings by snipers, and these claims have some support or at least can't all be ruled out. However, most incidents are murkier and require some study to compare the stories with the other available evidence. 

Some early deaths at 203 Yablunska

First, some examples of what I'm not counting, but include as possibly relevant - as related in some detail at another Monitor post, a connected-seeming local Oleksandr Konovalov claimed, in a June report to RFE/RL, to have found 11 bodies in a cellar near his home at 203 Yablunska, something no other sources I've seen mention. 

Back on April 2 or 4, also speaking to RFE/RL, he only knew of 4 early deaths, buried and separate from the 11.  None of them has further corroboration, and only one has a clear date. Therefore, I won't count these among the 18 below. Pointing to building 203A, Konovalov says six men and four women were living there when the Russians came. "They killed three men out of six." over days. He leads with "[The Russian troops] came here on February 27," but "the first day" for killings might refer to their arrival as occupiers, given by a few sources as March 3. 

2/27 or 3/3: "On the first day, they shot Yevhen on the street for no obvious reason. No one knows why." No victim of that name known to me, and no deaths here are known on either day. Burial place, if any, is unclear.

2/28 or 3/4" The next day, they shot Leonid. That morning, he showed them his documents and said that he lived here. He was shot in the back when he turned around." (gestures towards graves). A man who lived nearby  - Entry 1 below, Valerii Kizilov - was reported shot by soldiers sometime on the 4th at his own and different home. On either day, Leonid too seems a new story.  

2/28 or 3/4, or a later day: "They killed the third man when they were drunk. They told him to hand over their mobile phones. He brought the phones, and they shot him and then threw a grenade at him. He was buried in pieces without his head. It was horrible." (points to graves) That's a strange story we've never heard. The guy blown up AND shot, admittedly for no logical reason ("drunk") ... after collaborating with the Russians by delivering the phones of locals ... perhaps he was killed by a mortar shell or the like, from the Kiev side, maybe aiming for the soldiers. Maybe an Azov Battalion drone was used, lessening the likelihood this collaborator was killed on accident. If so, it would have to re-branded as a Russian crime, and the dumber the better, from the mindless, corrupted and self-destructive "orcs" of Banderite fairy tales. Either way - what remarkably poor luck had this building, at the edge of Bucha's no-man's land and Kiev's defense by artillery. 

Finally, as what seems a side-note, Oleksandr adds "My brother was killed on March 5 at around 5 o'clock when he was walking to a cellar. He was buried over there," pointing east. That's a date, but no name or killing location. It sounds like a match with #14, Roman, except for a different burial location. If this refers to one already listed, I can't say which. I won't count it in the 18. But before counting, note this could add 3 or 4 to the area total, or even more if some of those 11 in the cellar were killed this early.

3/4-3/10 East Yablunska Killings 

As widely reported, a reign of terror with random shootings and tank shelling along Yablunska street was ushered in with a bang on the 5th, after a smaller start on the 3rd. This is one of the few places Kiev's forces would be most capable of operating in, by virtue of two nearby river crossings from Irpin into Bucha's east and south. But that may not matter in these days and with these killings. 

Here, we'll consider at least 18 people killed between March 4 and March 10 on and near this 2-block stretch of Yablunska street (2 happened a block south, one a bit north). As many as 15 of these killing happened on March 5, at least one was reportedly on the 4th, one on the 6th, 17 dead by March 7, all 18 by noon on the 10th. In this central area, there's a lot of information from dated visuals and reports to cross-correlate it all with some confidence. This post expands on and improves my early "Mortar Alley" starter post. This overview map improves on the one there, which had placed the roundabout one block east, stretching the scene - that's fixed here. (the killings at that roundabout are not included here, happening a bit past the present timeframe.)

What we know about the circumstances of these are related below, in mostly chronological order.

1) Valerii Kizilov: Reuters and Digital Journal report Russian forces first arrived in south-central Bucha on March 3. commandeering the home of Vitalii Zhyvotovskyi. As told, they made him and his daughter stay in the basement, while they lived upstairs and brought people who were beaten and sometimes executed on-site. The first reported killing came on their second day, March 4: Valerii Kizilov, 70, stepped out of a cellar where he and his wife were hiding, across the street at 64 Vodprovidna. His wife, Lyudmyla Kizilova, 67, "heard shooting, then silence and an order shouted to her. “If there is someone down there, come out or I’ll throw a grenade in." She came out, was allowed to live and stay with the Zhyvotovskyis in their basement. 

Mrs. Kizilov says she later found Vitalii's body, shot in the head, and the Russians buried it in their garden March 9. She and the Zhyvotovskyis managed to flee on the 10th. Photos of the Zhyvotovskyi house with the Reuters report match with Vodoprovidna 55 (not numbered on Google Maps or on Yandex maps but logically it would be 55). Another article includes a photo "Lyudmyla Kizilova ... outside their partially destroyed house in town of Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, on April 27, 2022. " It looks like Vodoprovidna 64, right across the street.  Her house was still intact March 12-13, had been shelled and burned by the 23rd (Azov drone views), along with #55, with fires and escape tracks across the field behind. 

We don't have visual confirmation of the body or grave, but it seems likely enough, and it's dated with a name and story, the earliest such death in this area.

2) Irina Filkina: Catherine Philp wrote for the Times April 9: "The first to die on Yablunska Street was a female cyclist whose death was captured by a Ukrainian drone..." It was on March 5, not March 3, as the video initially claimed, so not quite the first. Her case has its own post here to consider the details. The time is not certain, at first seeming to me like close to the 5PM curfew, but reportedly in the morning, earlier than Oleg Abramov was killed. His wife (also named Iryna - I spell them differently to help avoid confusion) "said that she saw the body of a woman lying next to a bicycle a few meters from their gate, just after Russian forces shot and killed her husband." 

Filkina would be identified by her distinctive manicure, as seen in a close-up photo, and connected to a story related by her family members, especially daughter Olga. Irina was sheltering and helping at the Epicenter shopping center in western Kiev from Feb. 24 to March 5, when increased shelling had everyone departing the mall (which was apparently used by the military to launch attacks on Russian forces). She decided to go home to Mikhailovka-Rubezhovka, west of Irpin. She drove - apparently by bicycle - to the Romanivka crossing, then had to cross the river on foot, as the bridge was destroyed, Then she secured a bicycle (or a different one - unclear why) and continued towards home. But she didn't go directly to the west. There was a Russian offensive that day in western Irpin. She may have been directed north to avoid that fighting. 

A man from Irpin told Irina's daughter a woman fitting the description "rode a bicycle through the "Ukrainsky" checkpoint in the Buchansky district" at the north end of Irpin and the bridge to Bucha. Then she "turned around the corner, and the Russian military shot at her." Checkpoints should be manned, by people who seemingly waved Iryna further north to die, rather than turning her back, like Olga recalls trying to do. They'd say they were unaware of the Russian offensive all along her route, or the column of tanks that just arrived across the river. But an Azov Battalion drone was watching that column as it sat parked on and near Yablunska; it would watch her cycle right towards them, up Vokzalna street, and film the fatal shot just around the corner where she finally turned west. 

On the video, 2 tanks are seen firing, one primarily and starting before she was visible. It also seems that was aiming more up the street (see below, entries 5 & 6), rather than at her. The second tank fires just once, moments later (and thus likely in reaction to her), sending up white dust near the fence, likely including concrete dust from the impact that killed her. That might be the same one that knocked down a light pole, but it looks more like that already happened. Otherwise, I think, it would be visible in the yellow box above.  

The armored column responsible for that is presumably - but not certainly - Russian operated and part of their general expansion from the city's southwest. It could have just been surprised by her appearance, taking it as a threat. But they have much more to (allegedly) answer for.

3) Oleg Abramov: This too has a dedicated post, to be updated. Irina Filkina was shot right in front of the home of Volodomyr Abramov, his daughter Iryna Abramova, and her husband Oleg Abramov (who took his wife's name). Sometime in the morning, after Filkina's killing, one of the same armored vehicles pulled up closer, and in most versions, they tossed a "grenade" in the window, or perhaps fired a tank or even mortar shell ("projectile"), starting a fire. There's also a gas generator being started at the time to consider, and fragmentation marks all along the fence still to analyze. Whatever it was, and/or some later event blew the roof and some upper walls away from about 20m square. That happened prior to noon on March 10 (satellite), quite likely on the 5th just after the drone footage discussed above, For all we know, a Ukrainian mortar crew tried to hit the Russian column but hit the house instead. 

Then, as the story has been told many times now, the soldiers shot the gate with their rifles (it was unlocked), stormed into the yard and ordered everyone out, asking over and over where "the Nazis" were. No one knew. While the house burned, they had Oleg take off his shirt, presumably to check for Nazi tattoos. Finding no tattoos, facing no resistance, the soldiers shot Oleg in the head right there on the corner, killing him. They then sent Iryna and her father away, after a 3-hour interrogation, having them walk southwest on Yablunska, away from the frontline, where they found some shelter for the coming weeks.  

Iryna says she "always thought of [the Russians] as our brothers," being half-Russian herself. Of course, she changed her mind about that, thanks to the described events. Iryna says "She thinks they [executed Oleg] to scare others in Bucha into submission." The message would be "this is what happens to people who don't resist, have no known weapons, no military service, no Nazi tattoos, no Nazi addresses to give." It would not be in the Russians' rational interest. This sounds like up-close execution for no reason by villains in full cartoon mode, with a strong dose of suspicious irony. We're probably missing part of the story, but even after some closer looking, it's not clear just what. To be continued.

4) Another Body (and Maybe Another): Iryna Abramova saws she saw "bodies" already on the street when Oleg was killed. Irina Filkina was one (on the sidewalk next to the downed pole), and only one other is seen right there later. That body (seemingly adult male, with a white armband) is visible by satellite on March 10, in drone views on March 12/13 covered with a white banner, then uncovered by March 25 to April 2 and then moved to the sidewalk. The body was originally near a car that, by the drone video of the 5th, had already been shot or shelled and was partially crushed - maybe by a heavy truck as opposed to a tank. "On the night of March 4, [Iryna and Oleg] heard huge trucks passing in the road." It's not clear whose trucks, nor driving which way. Video analysis suggests all the marked items were down like this prior to the Abramov killing. 

The car seems to change positions from the March 5 image. Different ways to read that. 

Not mentioned: another body inside the Abramovs' gate. Iryna mentions a male cousin lived there, but never said if he was involved in the events of the 5th. As of March 25 anyway, a body is visible inside their gate (marked above as "??"), and can later be seen in views like the above, inside the gate laying next to Oleg's motorcycle. If the cousin were away, or had evacuated like most, anyone else is more likely to get killed here later. We'll count this death as an undated maybe, 4b on the overview map due to possible incident connection, but excluded from the count and "at least" tallies.

5,6) Volodomyr Brovchenko and another Man: The tanks in front of the Abramov house had already been doing stuff seen on video, like shooting cyclist Irina Filkina. The lead tank fires five times, and in one case, a glowing tank shell is visible (Qoppa). This can be approximately lined up with the tank's cannon turret and the line extended to estimate where it was aimed - not at Filkina but more straight down the street. The drone view doesn't go far enough to show an impact, but I marked features on a wider view that did and skewed that sketch until it fit here, to extend the view (approximate). It roughly intersects with a tree that was splintered and downed in front of 221 Yablunska, apparently on March 5. That should only require one shell; it's not clear where others might have impacted.

Immediately next to that tree is the corpse of a man with a blue bicycle, in some views guarded by a loyal dog.  He was most likely killed in the same strike that splintered the tree. I have previously written that this was "probably" hit from the southeast, mainly because other nearby impacts showed that (see "Mortar Alley" starter post). But the fence damage mainly to the east of the tree and runs for a ways, plus the way the tree toppled (see images below) fit much better with a tank shell fired from the west, as suggested here. 

AFP, "Death on Yablunska: Four lives that ended in Bucha" (one posting at The Star): Volodymyr Brovchenko, 68, was "shot dead while pedalling up Yablunska around March 5. A neighbour tried to pull his corpse from the street, and that man ended up getting shot too" but not fatally (and maybe somewhere else, really). "Brovchenko thus lay on the pavement with a blue bike for weeks." The other bicyclist in this stretch, with orange gloves, is named in the same article, and he died on the 6th, so this one with a blue bike must be him. 

Another man with no details is dead just on the other side of that tree, probably killed in that same shelling, collapsed with a small bag of groceries (maybe just baby potatoes). I've seen no reports with details on that one. but Mr. Brovchenko ...

A CBC News video (3:00) shows the same man and says "Volodomyr Brovchenko was killed by a sniper around March 5, according to neighbors. He was on his way to work at an orphanage in Vorzel." (Vorzel is just west of Bucha). Catherine Philp, The Times, April 9: "It was March 5" exactly, when "Volodymyr Borovchenko stepped out on Yablunska Street ... to reach the disabled children he cared for at an orphanage in Vorsel." He kept stepping, they heard, not pedaling. "...he moved gingerly. But he walked into an ambush. A sniper had been lying in wait, determined to keep the street clear of all human life."   

Small tears visible on his coat - similar to but denser than those seen on Irina Filkina's coat (and bicycle seat?) Apparently that's what this kind of tank shelling does. 

Confirming that 2 men were killed here, and killed first, TBS News Dig (Japan): A man on Yablunska said "When I looked through the hole in the wall on March 5 and 6, there were already bodies," In an accompanying video report, at 2:40 a video is shared, with a date shown as March 5, 12:04 PM. What's visible vs. what's blurred suggests the tree and 2 men are down; the whole areas is covered with one wide blur. They blur bodies in Japan, and can show brush like this, but one blur was easier. marked here with 2 white circles and a blue curve, for bodies and the tree. 

The van might be present, but likely is not (green box) Not present yet: The spilled oil from the burned van, and probably the van itself - an oil streak from another attack on a car - the apparent driver of that car, executed on the street. If the time on this is correct, all those things happened after noon of March 5.

7) Mykhailo Kovalenko

The body missing from that view was probably that of Mykhailo Kovalenko, age 62, going by AFP's "Death on Yablunska" report:  "While it was still possible, Mykhailo Kovalenko, his wife and daughter tried on March 5 to escape Bucha by car."  Their route apparently included west on Yablunska, towards the Irpin crossing. It was just before that left turn that Artem, the boyfriend of Kovalenko's daughter, says Kovalenko ""got out of the vehicle with his hands up" to present himself to a checkpoint manned by Russian soldiers." Nonetheless, Artem says, "the troops opened fire." His wife and daughter were able to run away, Artem says, even though the wife was shot in the leg as she ran - not injured in an attack on the car. No such attack is included in this telling; it sounds like they stopped voluntarily upon seeing the checkpoint, and were shot individually from there.

A later AFP report: "On the right in a black coffin is Mykhailo Kovalenko, 62, a father who was killed by a Russian sniper as he tried to escape, according to his grieving son-in-law." This indirect witness is the only one we've heard from. 

Handy description from "Death on Yablunska": Mr. Kovaleko's body lay on its side, dressed in a "blue parka and smart beige trousers." That's probably the body seen here, just behind a van he wasn't driving. But it seems that he was initially next to a car, the one his wife and daughter fled from. 

Some violence stopped the car there and caused a leak, with oil or whatever adding a stain on the pavement next to Mikhailo's body. As shown below (Azov drone, 3/25), that built up right there for some time (hours?) forming a large puddle, then a trail following the car as it was pushed back and off the street. This happened before the earliest images of March 6 or 7 including the burning van (next entry). Off the street, the car was then ransacked. Basic evacuation stuff is seen, including women's clothing. 

It wasn't mentioned, but the car came under attack. Some damage from this: bullet holes or fragment marks from maybe two angles, or from ahead and to the left; both driver's side windows shot out, marks along the driver's door and at the back end, an oblique tear - some others shattered the windshield, a couple in the hood, and at least one into a front tire. This would likely be prior to their stopping, and it might have caused injuries prior to Mr. Kovelnko stepping out or his wife running. In fact, it seems quite possible the attack was somewhat accidental and caused all these injuries, and the story was embellished to clarify criminal intent.

There's another body closest to the car, with less blood on the pavement than with most. That itself could suggest he had bled in the car, but the story has no room for a different or a second man in that car, and it may be a coincidence. In fact, it looks like the car was steered away from him as it was rolled back, set to perhaps run him over. That body remains publicly unidentified, and is counted below as simply before March 7 (in the image below, both bodies possibly connected are boxed along with the car in pale blue.)

8, 9, 10, 11) Three Women and a Girl in a Van

Now to that burned-out van. It's reported that three women and a girl (the only child whose death is considered here) were killed inside of it. This deserves its own post, and then a summary here, but for now ...

An early report from April 11 focused on the driver, Zhanna Kameneva, born 1985, a patriot from Bucha who had volunteered helping the military since 2014 and, with the public organization "Buchanska Varta", she "brought assistance to orphanages in Donetsk and Luhansk regions." Photo: Zhanna Kameneva during one of the trips to the East, from ZN.UA.

After the Russian invasion of 2022, she helped evacuate people from Bucha, according to a military man with "Buchanska Varta," Bogdan Yavorsky, who confirmed Kameneva's death: "According to Yavorsky, on March 5, she was carrying her employee from Bucha to Kyiv with her 14-year-old daughter and neighbor when the car was shot from armored personnel carriers and, probably, with assault rifles, as a result of which the car burned down and all four people died." According to Yavorsky, According to the activist, Zhanna labeled her car "children" and "evacuation." The van was identified by the VIN code in April. Kamaneva's remains (presumed - it seems no DNA testing was possible) were buried on April 9. 

A more detailed report from ZN.UA ("Mirror of the Week?") in May includes a photo looking inside the van to show less than four peoples' worth of carbonized tissue in 4 seats, the rest of it probably nearby. The victims are listed as: Zhanna Kameneva, Maria Ilchuk, 14-year-old Anya Mishchenko and her mother Tamila Mishchenko. 

Zn.ua spoke to Zhanna's bereaved husband Gennady (Kamanev?), who has served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces since February 24. That day, she evacuated their children. After nthat, "Joan [Zhanna] in Bucha transported people's products from our store and, if possible, took out friends and those who asked for help. ...On March 3, she told me that people would come and take the last products. On the 4th, she came home to Bucha, moved to the night and on March 5 she already wanted to go to Irpin." 

It's not clear exactly how to read that passage - what "products" there was in whose "store" in Bucha the "last" of which was so urgently needed in government-held Irpin? "People" would take it, but we hear Mrs. Kamaneva herself "was carrying food to Irpin." Gennady and Zhanna are both described as "volunteering." In his case, it's with the Ukrainian military, and perhaps in her case as well. The nature of this March 5 mission is a bit unclear, in a way that might be very relevant.

"On the morning of March 5, Zhanna called me and said that she had come to Bucha and saw how enemy equipment came to our Lech Kaczynski Street." What he calls "our street" is the location of the same day's killing of the Chikmaryov family reportedly by said tanks, at 7:15 AM. It's unclear if she had been there overnight or came in the morning, but either way she might have seen that event, or the aftermath of it. If so, she doesn't mention it. "I asked her to be careful and she said, "I love you very much."

Ilchuk (the "employee"?), was ill and suffering in the cold. She turned down an early evacuation offer, but now "agreed to go with [Zhanna] when she saw what atrocities the occupiers were committing in Bucha." Tamila Mishchenko was apparently Zhanna's employer, and not a close neighbor. Her son, and Anya's older brother, Evgeny said "it so happened that my mother's employee Zhanna, who was a volunteer, was carrying food to Irpin. She called my mother and said that now she would go past Tarasivska Street and would be able to take us out. ..." Yandex Maps shows Tarasivska street a bit north of east Yablunska. The 3 areas and basic suggested route are mapped at right. 

"Then from Irpen there was still a train on which it was possible to get to Kiev." The rail bridge was blown, by the "Rashits" as told, but from the Kiev side, sometime that same morning. And they never crossed to Irpin anyway, although they apparently got close. 

Evgeniy refused to go, Anya reportedly didn't want to go, and their family in general had encouraged them to stay put until there was an agreed "green corridor." Evgeniy explained how their home was unusually safe, but he says "panic and fear worked. My mother wanted to save my sister, so she took this step" and accepted the fatal ride to Irpin. He also says:

"On March 5, I texted Zhanna with the question: "How is my mother?" In response, she wrote a short word: "Norm." And when I called Zhanna's number after lunch, I heard in response: "This number does not exist." My mother's number replied: "At the moment, the caller cannot accept your call.""

Damage Analysis: Zhanna's husband Gennady was convinced that the Russian military killed his wife, from a "checkpoint" on the corner of Vokzalna and Yablunska streets. Seeing the van, Gennady thought it might have been hit with a Rocket-Propelled Grenade or the cannon of an Infantry Fighting Vehicle - less than full-on tank fire. In my assessment, the main impact was through the windshield - an extra-scorched arc across the hood might mark its detonation ring - a pressure wave bulged out the roof and driver's side, tearing out on the passenger side - a number of fragments and/or bullets tore into the hood and windshield frame - a separate shell impact to the grill, driver's side. There seem to be more punctures clear in the back of the van, and some are clearly visible from the back. The van may have been shot from the back at one point, as well as from the front. Damage from later fighting can't be ruled out.

Timeline Issues: At the ZN.UA article, a sort of death certificate is shown, saying Zhanna Kamaneva died March 5. But as far as I can see, that's not clear. Gennady said it was that morning when "sometime around the 10th hour, I received a text message from her: "Enemy tanks are coming at us."" The location was not specified. "She called me, but I didn't have a connection then, and the message came at 11 o'clock. After reading, I immediately began to call her, there was a call, but no one picked up the phone. Perhaps their phones were taken away before they were killed."

The way it actually rang seems to have tipped him off that the phone wasn't destroyed. I'm not sure how that works, but Evgeniy says he got a message that the number doesn't exist - but that was "after lunch." Otherwise, the direct assumption is that they were killed by sudden tank fire on the van, which would have it ablaze by 11 AM, and probably earlier. 

But that was not the case. TBS News Dig (Japan) heard from a man on Yablunska who said "When I looked through the hole in the wall on March 5 and 6, there were already bodies. On the 6th or 7th a car was burned and there were four bodies in it." He's not clear when the people inside became bodies - presumably at the same time the van was burned, presumably in an attack. But as shown above, a video shows that, as of 12:04 PM on the 5th, the van hadn't been attacked yet. It might be present, but in a different position if so. That's about 2 hours after that tank was reportedly headed for them and at least an hour after contact was lost.

The final attack might have happened in the early afternoon or evening, or as said the following day or maybe even on the on 7th. What transpired in the hours to days in between, after their phones were perhaps taken, remains unclear. The van was clearly blasted here; it could hardly drive from anywhere else in this state ... Possibilities: killed here and blasted all at once - killed here while driving the 5th, bodies left inside, or taken out and killed, then put back inside, and then blasted later to burn the evidence - the same but killed elsewhere, then moved here and blasted - no clear motive for the Russians to do that, no clear reason to suspect anyone else - no witnesses to any manipulations - nor to the actual attack, for that matter. Just one external witness mentions it, but he doesn't even clarify the date. 

It would be handy to have this story lead to this spot on the morning of March 5, and to that tank column already seen there and implicated in other apparently senseless killings. The final message and van location would seem to seal that up. But the connective evidence doesn't seem to reflect that sealing, instead revealing an unexplained gap. 

Bucha prosecutors shared with CNN some photos taken mostly on March 5, 6 and 7. One image including the van recently hit, intensely burning like it was hit just minutes ago. Mr. Brovchenko lays dead and Mykhailo Kovalenko pours blood on the pavement, and his car has already been pushed aside. But conveniently enough, they didn't give a specific date for that image.  

So we can only assume a date range of the 5th to the 7th, but I've listed them by the official date and implied time, and more follow on the 5th in the same alleged sequence ... 

12,13) Two Sisters: NYT month of terror:  "On March 5th, a Russian sniper began firing on anything moving south of the high school. ... A retired teacher known as Auntie Lyuda, short for Lyudmyla, was shot midmorning on March 5th as she opened her front door on a small side street. Her body lay twisted, half inside the door, more than a month later." "Her younger sister Nina, who was mentally disabled and lived with her, was dead on the kitchen floor. It was not clear how she died. “They took the territory and were shooting so no one would approach,” a neighbour, Serhiy, said. “Why would you kill a grandma?”"

AFP: "According to her death certificate, Lyudmyla Bochok, 79, was killed by a bullet to the head and the back on March 5. Her body was found lying on the doorstep of her home at 87, Peremogy Street in Bucha." "Bochok's mentally handicapped sister Nina, 74, was found dead in the kitchen: she died of heart failure, according to the death certificate seen by AFP. But her nephew Yevgen Pasternak believes she died of fright, loneliness or hunger, after the Russians executed her sister." 

No such address "87, Peremogy Street" exists, per Google or Yandex Maps. The NYT mapping probably equates to #13 on the corner of Peremohy (Peremogy) street and Peremohy lane. A satellite view and distant street view seem consistent, but not verifiable. This is 2 blocks east and one block south of where the tank column was seen, It's just one block east of where a shelled-out tank appeared just before the bridge to Irpin between March 4 and 10 - likely on the 5th but maybe later. It may have been another Russian tank trying to cross, hit by the Ukrainians. It's not likely to be the other way around; the barricades set by Ukrainian forces are moveable, but comparing them, it seems like they probably weren't moved.  Also added between 3/4 and 3/10 on the Irpin side right in the path of evacuees, is a badly destroyed civilian car and a mostly-intact male corpse next to it. 

Point being: this is almost at the crossing to Irpin, the one place in the area where Ukrainian fighters might still operate, on foot at least, even despite a Russian incursion. Therefore who's around to shoot or to inspire shelling is not so clear as it is right on Yablunska. Their neighbor Serhiy, for example, might know more about this.

I tried some scene analysis from the 4 photos I've found. Outside: a window is broken, several possible marks to both visible walls (from 2 directions, and I can't say which 2), some of them on the obliquely-viewed wall on the left (maybe facing north?) seem to have singed the wall in a way I don't think regular bullets do. Shelling? Less marks appear on the other wall (facing west?). 3 marks are visible on a corner inside the door (a wardrobe?), maybe from bullets at a distance. It could be a shell impacted, and when she came out to inspect, someone shot her. We can't see any marks on Lyudmila's body, but another photo I've seen in clear she lost some blood across the pavement. That photo also shows the interior marks better (inset here).

Inside, kitchen wall - unclear how it relates to the doorway seen above: one possible bullet or fragment mark of the regular type has cipped the wall, one that hit on the wallpaper also burned a ring around it. Nina was found curled up just below these marks, dead of heart attack in a reported coincidence. She could have been hit, but it's not clear why that should be denied.

Something strange about her hands could have a mix of causes including, but not limited to, decay and frostbite and prior medical conditions.

14) Roman: 

The final entry for the 5th is the only one specified as not in the morning. This one gets half of a dedicated post. In summary, RFE/RL reported from an anonymous man "a sniper started shooting in the area on March 5 ... When we left our house before the curfew time that day, a sniper killed my son-in-law." HRW reported the location as NW Yablunska and the time as "about 4:30" (curfew was 5:00). "[T]hey opened their front gate to assess the damage. As Roman stepped out of the yard, his father-in-law heard a muffled sound and Roman fell to the ground." He was pulled back to safety. "Roman’s sister-in-law, Tetiana, said they tried unsuccessfully to call a hospital and the Ukrainian territorial defense forces for help. Roman suffered all night and died the following morning at about 8 a.m.." 

NYT Month of Terror: Referring to March 5th: "That afternoon, a father and his son stepped out of their gate to go for a walk." Here the father is named Ivan, Roman left unnamed and called son, not son-in-law. Ivan says “They shot my son ... It would be better if it had been me. ... It’s very hard to bury your child.” Roman “died at 8.20 am,” and "the family buried him in the front garden under a huge mound of earth. “

Assuming son-in-law with added affection, the stories track well. Drone videos don't show a mound in the garden, but it might be hidden under trees. There is a mound of earth outside the fence, where the sniper was supposedly at work, but that may be coincidental.  

How did Roman get shot? It seems possible he and Ivan were seen as a threat, maybe stepping out to record the Russians' position or even to directly attack them. Calls were placed to Territorial Defense - because they come and help random people, or because they were Roman's secret employers? If so, the family might be quieter about the incident, to avoid drawing attention to it.

15) Mykhailo Romaniuk: UP March 6, archived: Verbatim city council: "The enemy continues to shell houses, cars, kill civilians and even children, ...A significant number of residents are in basements." For example, Yablunska 17 was hit late on the 5th, after the local water tower had been destroyed - fires raged uncontrolled all night, destroying many homes. No injuries or deaths mentioned. (will be covered in another post) But the day's one reported death was reportedly by shooting.

AFP, Death on Yablunska: "On March 6, at 10:30 am," Mykhailo Romaniuk, 58, was accompanying his niece's boyfriend Oleksandr Smagliuk, 21, on a visit to the hospital where Smagliuk's father was just wounded in whoever's shelling of the city. Romaniuk hoped to charge his phone at least, besides offering support. They arrived on Yablunska, seemingly headed west. "Then the shooting started," Smagliuk said. "We didn't see anybody. I didn't realise until the end where the shots came from. I just heard gunfire and saw him fall." He doesn't say where the shots came from, or how he decided that, or why the shooters didn't shoot him too. We hear these Russians were "determined to keep the street clear of all human life."   

"Romaniuk's body remained for 28 days on a stretch of pavement with a yellow and white curb - his swollen face turned to the side in a grimace, orange gloves still on his hands." This is apparently him. (below: #8 in a gold box) 

"[Romaniuk's] death certificate cites "ballistic cranial trauma, caused by a penetrating bullet... multiple cerebral lesions and fracture of the cranial cavity", and concludes: "automatic weapon injury with intent to kill." Not to call a Ukrainian official death certificate fake, but I would expect these injuries were caused by "shrapnel" from the mortar or artillery shell that obviously impacted the ground less than 5 meters east of where he fell, forming a crater. It happened, and would spray many metal fragments in his direction, to lacerate the skin of his head, cause a skull fracture and another penetration to the back of the head, as he was positioned. And they do say "cranial," not "facial," There may be other injuries not mentioned here, like more "bullets" in his back. Mr. Smagliuk, if he had really been there, probably would have been hit by some fragments as well, but that isn't mentioned, as he defies the evidence to claim shooting. 

Or did the crater possibly come later? The March 7 video is unclear, with the blur seeming to just cover the impact area. A still provided to CNN by Bucha prosecutors is also unclear - in a batch dated March 5-7, the one of Romaniuk just crops off the crater area - some of the ejecta seems to be visible, faintly, as a line of slightly darker patches running from above his handlebars to the right, maybe including a branch, but also more dark debris, I think that means the crater is already made.

Satellite views offer little clarity - see comparison below - 3/10 unclear but might show it - drone views 3/12-13 not clear, but perhaps DON'T show it when they would - but extra bright noon sun and sidewalk glare might wash it out in the low-resolution views - it's only clear by Maxar's enhanced view of March 19, but quite possibly there since the day Mr. Romaniuk died, and probably related to its cause, as I always assumed. 

As I earlier noted and maintain, the crater and its ejecta to the northwest indicate the shell was fired from the southeast - Ukrainian-held territory. It hit immediately in front of what's later seen as a Russian base at 221b Yablunska. A spray-painted V, discarded ammunition boxes give that impression. It's not clear if it was even an alleged Russian base on the 6th, nor why it logically would ever be a worthwhile base - would later be involved in strange activities (A CBC News video).

2015 street view, crops too tight to show the relevant gate, but verifies the place, all near the area described by the witness.

16, 17) Two others by March 7

Another body lies near Mr. Romaniuk, a bit west and uphill from him, that might well have died from the same shelling - or possibly from something earlier. He can't be ruled out of the scene noon on the 5th (off frame), but likely came later, or else his body might have been shown. This man lost a lot of blood from the head, and as seen in April and by the 3/25 drone view, has had some of his hip torn off by hungry stray dogs, not in the fatal attack. 

Another is also close enough to connect, but two details raise questions - he's next to the car otherwise linked to Kovalenko, and he's shed less blood on the asphalt than the other victims. Logically, he may have been hit inside the car and only pulled out later. But the reports don't mention a second man, so that may be coincidence. (below, bodies 9 and 10 in the orange box) 

18) Another soon after

Another crater would appear in this same area, along with one more body to complete the terrible array we'd see in April, This final addition is the most visible in the famous driving videos, splayed dramatically in the middle of the street near an obvious mortar shell crater and a spray of dirt and rocks across the street. (#11 in red below, 18 on the overview map). 

The body and crater appear at the same time, as far as I can tell, on an unclear day - possibly after noon on the 7th, maybe on the 8th or 9th, or the 10th, but it seems satellite views show a body there at least by the 10th at pretty close to noon - body connects with pole shadow, but seems to be there - crater unclear, in shadow, but seemingly present - clearly present 3/12-13 and clearer yet 3/19 (see comparisons below). As with the March 6 crater and even more clearly, this shell was fired from the southeast, Ukrainian-held territory. 

East core area overview images

First, the best available view from a March 25 Azov Battalion drone video -  different numbers than used for the overview map above, by reported dates. Again, both bodies possibly connected to the car are boxed along with it in pale blue, along with its oil track. Another abandoned car at the right side surely has an interesting story, but it doesn't connect to any known cases.

Panoramic view from TBS News Dig of the street as it appeared on March 7 - just one body, one crater missing from the final array. Scene looked like that from March 5 ... a dated reading, superseded by the above. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x25yKasPGo

at 3:48 ... shows filmed March 7 at 12:33PM. 

For the murkier cases with craters, early satellite and drone views March 10-19, no enhancements, compared - van marked yellow - upper right view has opposite rotation (viewed from the north): 

Review

Total March 4-10, east Yablunska core area: at least 18 killed. (1 girl, 6 women, 11 men). As many as 4 other men were killed in the same days and area, per Mr. Konovalov, but his narrative aside, they likely fit the same patterns as those with clearer evidence. At least one execution seems pretty sure (#3 Abramov with his shirt off). Others may have been deliberately shot, but often are near other shooting or shell impacts that might be what killed them. In my assessment, 7 were seemingly killed by "tank shelling" - something on treads with a cannon (#2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11), apparently Russian forces, from the west. 7 died by unclear shelling or shooting (#1, 4, 7, 12, 14, 16, 17). Most of those were officially listed as killed by "shooting," mostly reported as the "sniper" type. One reportedly died from heart attack (#13, Nina Bochok). 

Unprovoked acts of evil by the Russians are entirely possible, have been reported, and are widely presumed. But to my mind, this remains unproven. In some cases, a part may be played by misread movements, especially past or near curfew in these days outside of agreed evacuation operations. These could just be the kind of traffic incidents common to military forces occupying urban areas, especially where attacks are launched from civilian homes and cars - people round the wrong corner too fast in low visibility, for example, and the Russians shoot first, ask questions later. The number of such incidents seems alarming but might just reflect the scale of Russian operations here - a lot of traffic means a lot of incidents. 

It's possible, though not much indicated, that some victims were engaged in actual attacks on Russian forces, where the shooting was in actual self-defense, At least two were probably killed by attacks against the Russians, or even in a deliberate false-flag sense, with shelling from the Kiev side (#15 Romaniuk, #18 unidentified). Others might have been killed in the same and other such strikes or other false-flag attacks (e.g. Abramov house, body 4b), but just the two are fairly clear. That's not as many as I initially suspected, but that's how the learning goes here.

The Killing of the Chikmaryov Family

< Bucha Massacre: The Killing of the Chikmaryov Family

July 5, 2022

(rough, incomplete - last updates 6/8)

Suspilne's June documentary film "Bucha 22" does not cover 22 victims of the Bucha Massacre, as I first guessed. The program focuses on four killings in one incident as a telling example with a lot of evidence. I suppose it is a telling example - the whole thing is kind of murky like this. Likewise this post ... may be refined and revised. 

Article I noticed late, still absorbing: Who among the Russian soldiers is behind the murder of a family in Bucha. Investigation

 «Буча 22» documentary on Youtube I was reviewing to start.

Video description, Google translated from Ukrainian: "On March 5, 2022, the day Bucha came under the full control of Russian troops, Oleksandr and Margarita Chikmaryov decided to flee the city. Their car and the car of their neighbors were fired upon without warning. The children - Matvii and Klim - and their mother Margarita died. Oleksandr was barely saved, he was left without a leg. Thanks to witnesses, journalists managed to obtain evidence of the presence of a specific unit of Russian troops at the scene of the shooting. The film is about the search and identification of Russian military personnel, amphibious assault vehicles and the unsuccessful attempts of the occupiers to hide their war crimes."

At least one prior telling of this story is around, from Daniel Boffey, The Guardian, 3 April, focusing more on the second car hit in the same incident. On the 5th: At around 7:15 am, four people were killed as they tried to flee from Bucha's northwest. Halyna Tovkach, 55, and her husband, Oleg, 62, and their son's mater-in-law Tetiana Kovalenko were "in a white Dodge," in caravan following their neighbors Oleksandr Chykmariov, 42, his wife, Margarita, 33, and their two boys Matvey and Klim, who took the lead in a white Ford. The cars came under attack vjust 800 meters from home, destroying the lead car and setting it ablaze. “I saw a V on the armoured vehicle” that opened fire, Halyna said. She was injured but she, Tetiana, and Oleksandr Chykmariov survived. Her husband, Oleksandr's wife and sons all died. "Oleg’s body, locals say, stayed in the car for five days." 

Bucha 22 barely mentions the second car, focusing on the family devastated in the lead car. It gives the same names, but has Matvii as just turned 10 when he was killed - a lot of detail - incident photos, related video, satellite, OSINT research stuff that's probably good and, as usual, only proves what it does. 

The two cars are shown in a low-quality crime scene photo, in a pull over lane where they were apparently hit. The front one is burnt out, apparently all right here, after pulling over and stopping. The area is clarified with later footage of the scene showing the UTEM plant on the left. Their orientation suggests they were driving north, 

Added June 8: For reference, the scene is mapped below, including armored vehicle placements explained further down. Cars placed approximately by eye.

Oleksandr speaks for the documentary from hospital, presumably well before June . He says despite his injury, he got out of the car before it started burning. A passerby helped wrap his leg, which was hanging loose and bleeding badly. Soon two others came as a car was passing - they flagged down what seemed like a taxi driver and got Oleksandr loaded, taken to the hospital/clinic on Pushinska street - he lost enough blood he barely survived. 

A "taxi driver" and paramedic - a veteran of the fighting in Donbas - are both interviewed in the program, as well as Oleksandr, his mother Valentyna Chikmaryov, his older brother, whose name I didn't see given in the video (but the article gives Vitaly). and a man who helped bury the dead later, all relating their parts in the story. 

What happened? (general)

For what it's worth, they were out before curfew was lifted. This extended from 5 pm to 8 am daily, as announced by Ukrainian authorities. The same would probably apply anywhere the Russians controlled, and observance of it expected anywhere they advanced. As for that was or might be, see map at the bottom of this article. Sunrise was at 6:35 am local time. Visibility would still be low at 7:15 am, possibly contributing to a Russian miscalculation. 

"Bucha 22" suggests in a few ways that the cars did not have a clear sign saying children. Their very visibility inside - "like an aquarium" - at 7am in a city without electricity, probably even for streetlights, coming from the south next to a park full of tall trees - is what's supposed to make the crime so clear.  

A witness says the tanks were moving on the 5th, a column of 41, but it's not clear which direction. Maybe the cars had pulled over to let the Russian column pass from the north, or as it came up quickly from the south? They clearly did pull over. Maybe the last tank decided to shell them, because they tried to get moving again too quickly, and it was seen as a threat, driving at them. Or maybe because it was the column's last chance to spill some innocent blood. Then the attacker might turn down a side street and U-turn, maybe in regret to come back and offer help, or to finish them off.

Maybe as the first units tried to pass, the Ukrainians shelled the column, damaging the cars and killing their occupants? There is no damaged AFV around, and no craters I can see - the one stray AFV shows no sign of shelling damage, but maybe suggested with the wheels and tread - how it pulled aside and then got stuck and had its wheels stolen later is all a little strange.

Some things that maybe didn't happen: The Guardian heard he took shelter behind the Kovalenkos' car and used a phone he found there to dial their son Roman and inform him - incorrectly - “Everyone’s dead. Your mother and father are dead." In another telling (see below, "alternate version?"), Oleksandr buried his wife, who was pregnant, in a trench the Russians had dug in the park. Now in Bucha 22, he only says he crawled into the park to shelter behind trees.

And, as explained below, maybe it happened on a different day, like March 6, or maybe March 9, when the military situation isn't as well-known. 

Oleksandr's Injuries

(added July 8): Some question is raised by Oleksandr's injuries and lack thereof. 3/4 of the people in the car suffered fatal injuries to the upper body, and the car damaged enough that it burst into flames. Yet the driver was basically uninjured. Oleksandr has no visible injuries - bullet holes, shrapnel tears, or burns, anywhere front side from the waist up, at least when seen in video only published in April. That might ne fresh video, allowing some time to heal, but then we'd say no MAJOR injuries, and we'd have to ask why was he in the hospital for over a month. 

The nature of the attack is not clear; I thought shelling, where fragments are many, hard to escape, and come on a blast wave. The car frame may be distorted like that, albeit fairly mild. TSN heard "the shelling immediately began" after the cars stopped. But maybe that's down to translation and it was all shooting with bullets. To Bucha 22 Oleksandr says "the shooting began immediately" and the Guardian heard "His wife and two boys had been killed instantly by the machine-gun fire that raked the vehicle."  With bullets, escaping injury is a bit more likely, but still unexpected. He's a fairly big target.

To be shielded that way, the gunfire would best come from the right, possibly right and ahead or better yet from behind - through the trees from inside the park, or maybe on Shevchenka street or more likely Pushinska streets - not from Chkalova. If so, they passed well ahead of this vehicle they saw on a side-street before they stopped. 

If so, Oleksandr would most likely be injured on the right upper body (head, shoulder),  But Tetiana in the car behind says a bullet hit her right shoulder or collarbone, suggesting from ahead. And Oleksandr was only injured on the left and low - about at the knee. Maybe the Russians shot him in the knee when he got out, meaning no evident injuries before that. Maybe an oddly-deflected but still powerful bullet inside the car took out his knee. Vitaly says as he talked to them, Margarita first shouted they shot her in the leg, prior to her screaming from subsequent shots. So this strange downward deflection was common. 

OR there's a different true story that make more sense, but which we aren't being told. 

Prosecution Witness / Muder Weapon Left Behind

"Bucha 22" also calls on area surveillance video timestamped midday on 4 March, showing tanks nearby at the Epicenter mall, and to residents who witnessed and filmed Russian armored vehicles in the area at the time; "Other residents of Lech Kaczynski street said an armored column appeared March 4, stayed overnight, and left on the morning of the 5th." This included one that was left behind on the side-street Hrebinka. Resident Volodomyr says it happened around 8am on the 5th. ...Volodomyr says some 40 vehicles passed - "There was a column. 40 pieces. She was 41st." This final one for some reason turned off on his street, tried to U-turn, and somehow got stuck and was abandoned in front of his house. Seen later, it's been jacked up and its wheels stolen. I didn't know that happened to tanks. 

The BMD's serial number 715 is mostly painted out, as it seems most of them are, everywhere in Ukraine. Suspilne did some research to link its triangle marking to a "104th Guards Assault Red Flag of the Order of Kutuzov Regiment." That can narrow down accountability efforts. In fact, the man who drove Oleksandr to the hospital also had a look and says "I decided this BMD 517 - oh no, 715 - was the enemy armored vehicle that shot these two cars." The same exact vehicle used to kill the Chikmaryov family - the murder weapon, the smoking gun - was conveniently dropped and left behind.  

But how that could be known in not clear. Suspilne adds by way of explanation "It turned out that the man is not a taxi driver, but a security adviser of a private company, the brand of which is indicated on his car." That's not shown. In the 1990s, he worked in the Prosecutor General's Office. His name is Valery Ransky." What a lucky break for the Prosecutor General's Office and their case against the Russians one of their guys was on hand to be a crucial witness to this incident. In fact, he became "the most valuable of the witnesses."

Adding 6/6: He says the BMD fired on the car from this street, perhaps from some forensic reading (but probably not). Standing in the park, he points (southwest? northeast?) and says "There are several streets there, from which they targeted this car" and so he thinks the one he could see on Hrebinka must have been "the" vehicle "that shot these two cars."

I'm not sure if this readable glimpse of the number is very unusual. If it is, wonder if it's being left to find is a simple coincidence or a telling one. Venturing into false-flag territory, I find it makes a certain sense. Half-visible unit IDs seen in Russia and then seen conspicuously in Ukraine, after getting tagged in a serious crime ... I've seen that before, with MH-17. I don't want to go into my complex and very dated thoughts on that case. Suffice to say the gist of it, applied here, has me wondering if this one tank carried out some stupid crime shotting those pulled over cars on purpose, just to make themselves and their team look bad, then it peeled off from that team, and its crew took off to ... maybe claim they defected to the Ukrainian side just now, in some other nearby place ... or maybe just go change clothes and then go to their local handler's house ... and collect their reward for writing Russia some more bad press. 

More than likely, this is just me with too much imagination. But likely enough to mention, it could have happened just about like that. Assuming this tank traffic really was on the 4th and 5th, any false-flag attack on those cars would obviously be on the same day. But as I'll explain, that isn't at all certain.

Adding 6/6: I didn't even mention Pavel Netyosov, the Territorial Defense fighter and military historian called on by Suspilne. an employee of the national military museum and the head of the international search organization." He also fought in the defense of Bucha and Irpin where, he says, "we several times stopped this column" but on the 4th the Russians came a different way and weren't stopped. The reporters had a recall of unit 715 before Pavedl, "the last of dozens of experts we approached." With his "memory jogged" by a map, he instantly remembered the videos he had on file, and hence the images we've seen. How Qoppa put it seems likely: "What I could imagine is that he is only introduced as "witness" to provide the clue for BMD-715 - which then, quite magically, Pavlo finds on his drive ... Just to make their "search" look a little more dramatic while it was pre-planned (by TDF ...)"

An Alternate Version?

Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk told the press around April 7: "I was in the community both before and during the occupation, as it's supposed to be. I personally witnessed three incidents in one place. I was in a private home where shots were being fired nearby. It was located on Lech Kaczynski Street. The Russian occupiers had set up a checkpoint there and they simply shot at three cars. In one of them, there was a man with his pregnant wife and two children. Only the man survived. He buried his pregnant wife in a trench the Russians had originally dug as a hideout. Instead of a cross, he put his car's license plate on the mound. The corpses of the children were taken to the church and buried there. I don't know if the man survived or what his fate was." (DW, April 7)

That's very similar to the case under study, but with difference. He has 3 cars in the convoy, not 2. In a video of April 13, Oleksandr says "We gathered as friends with my brother to flee." But Vitaly was not in either of the reported cars. In "Buchaq 22" he does relate speaking with them by phone, from somewhere else, as they drove. He had to ask where they were, advise them to stop when they saw Russian forces, and so on. Does that count as "gathered as friends with"? 

But Vitaly and his family being in the caravan could fit with the third car in Fedoruk's version. If so, it's been elaborately written out.

However, Fedoruk says he remained in the southwest Skolvodska district 3/3 to March 8; UP interview: "on the morning of March 8, we realized that the sweeps were already going on Yablunskaya Street, and the queue would come to us. ... The Russians entered every yard, looking for "Nazis", weapons. Therefore, we decided to abandon all our strategic paths and go straight – along the garages, through the forest belt to the railway and several stages to move to the city center." Kaczinsky street is a bit north of center. So implicitly, this incident happened March 8 or later, and isn't the same one. 

As told, Olexander's leg was nearly severed so he could barely crawl. He was probably not moving and burying bodies. And no one has mentioned Magarita being pregnant. That's no story fit. But then how many times did a man survive a tank attack on this fairly short street, but have his wife and 2 children die? Maybe twice? Maybe just the once, with different versions of it floating around?

Adding later: Local Oleg Doroshuk relates in Bucha 22 how he recovered the remains, apparently of the mother and children:  "I looked in the car and saw the bodies inside. ... the mother and children." But in the Suspilne article, he says "I left in the morning. There was another minibus, a white Volkswagen, also shot." (the 2nd or 3rd car?) "As it turned out, the woman was buried in the park, and a license plate was placed on the grave." He's not as sure Oleksandr did it, but this is the same story, and it should be after March 8, or maybe Fedoruk just fibbed.

Identified or Not?

Valentyna: "no one could take them [the bodies] away because of the constant shooting" that must have been pretty constant for 23 days. Neighbor Oleg Doroshuk told Bucha 22 It was weeks later, apparently. He gathered their fragmentary remains in a single blanket, and hauled it off. He says others helped bury the remains at the church on March 28, digging a special grave for them because they were not unknown. Their names were written on a cross to mark their single grave is shown, giving each victim's name, age, date of birth, date of death (05/03) and of burial (28/03). 

Fedoruk's version has only the boys' remains buried at the church. That makes better sense with one blanket, but either seems possible.

Bucha 22 includes, at 14:30 ... I think that's Ukraine's Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova - at the church mass grave in April as presumably his grave is exhumed. She cites eyewitness evidence to say that "these are the bones of one woman and two kids. We don't know yet who they are." There should have been that cross. But then, she was playing up the French DNA experts whose services had to seem important.

March 5 or March 6? or Even Later?

Looking at the cross marking the family's grave, I noticed the date was apparently changed. It probably said 06.03.2022 originally, then more firmly written as 05.03, 5 March as now reported. 

That could be a simple mix-up in someone's recall when writing that grave marker around the 28th. But then Olexandr made the same mistake, maybe forgetting the date in the fog under surgery. A video posted by Kiev Polity on Telegram, April 11 and April 13 by Meduza on Twitter has Oleksandr, when he was still in the hospital, giving the same date. The auto-translate says "On the 6th" is when they gathered to flee. Meduza got the same reading, describing the video "Oleksandr  Chikmaryov, a resident of Bucha, asked [tried] to leave the city with his family on March 6. (6 марта)."

And consider again how Mayor Fedoruk claims he was around to witness an incident strangely like this, on the same street but sometime later - after March 8, if his other testimony is to be believed.

Noteworthy: the story details suddenly appeared on March 9, just as the remaining family was finally re-deciding to flee. At least, that's what Vitaly says: "On March 9, we realized how this would end if we did not leave. The pines began to fall, and the houses - one, the third fell. We knew we were taking risks, but we sat down and left. When they left, they saw on Facebook that someone had posted that Chikmarev was in a hospital in Bucha. And I was still dead - I realized that he was alive. On the same day, it seems, there was also information that the family was shot in front of the "UTEM" in the car. I knew it was ours. But I hoped that maybe everyone survived, maybe just the car burned down,"

This could be a delay from internet outages, where the 9th was simply the first time people could post such news. It could also reflect the event actually happening on the 9th, as the family tried to flee for the first time. Maybe the third car just left.

What do we know about the military situation on March 6, or on the 8th or 9th? perhaps someone made a call to change the date - perhaps twice - so the story lined up with a known Russian military presence seen on the 4th and said to have left the 5th - leaving on the 5th, maybe perhaps the situation on the true day was less convenient. Maybe there was even a Ukrainian one instead that day (but that does seem unlikely from what I've been learning)..

Bucha 22, 29:12 the culmination of much work summarized: "therefore, on the morning of March 5, at about the same time as the killing of the two families on Lech Kaczynski Street happened, the BMD-2 drove from this street" and was left as evidence. But perhaps the incident had to be re-written to make it "at about the same time as" that tank got stuck. Note that of all the timestamped local surveillance footage called on, there is none that shows the actual attack to help clarify this point. The UTEM plant probably had cameras, but their footage isn't used to show the tanks or the attack.

Direction of Travel

(not so important, but it needed checked on)

The Guardian, 3 April: "a route to the western Ukrainian village of Romanivka was planned. They would travel in convoy" and they should be headed south. They'd have to park and cross to Irpin on foot, as that bridge was always barricaded. Then they'd have to get south through Irpin somehow, and cross on foot again at Romanivka where the bridge was destroyed, and then find a ride on regular streets to Kiev. 

But in Bucha 22, the Oleksandr's older brother Vitaly said "it was not far from here, near the crossroads to Hostemel "they were crossing the Warsaw highway and turning here." Warsaw highway = M-07, which turns to E373 - streets along it called Nove Highway  - hit north of that at the UTEM plant - cars seen across from it, facing north. All that says they were headed north towards Hostomel, not south towards Romanivka.

The article explains this was an intermediary route: "Oleksandr and Margarita and their two sons were to come first to Vitaliy in Lisova Bucha. There they refueled the car and all together left in the direction of Kiev." Or that was the plan. Valentyna and Vitaly lived in the wooded north, Lisova Bucha, and the others were coming to meet with them before all heading presumably back south, to the Irpin bridge, where theyd still have to park and cross to Irpin on foot, then get through Irpin and cross on foot again at Romanivka. That makes as much sense as it does. But after the incident, "Vitaly did not tell his mother what had happened. That day, his family decided not to leave." They would try again March 9, and apparently succeeded. 

Donbas Ethnic Russians? 

Like the Yershova family who lose their daughter Karina in the Bucha Massacre, the Chikmaryov family was displaced from the Donbas, after the 2014 coup, the vote for separation, and the ensuing Ukrainian military operation - or as couched here, after Russia invaded Donbas, "hiding its presence," and also started bombing the place. Mother Valentyna names Marinka and Krasnohorivka (just west of Donetsk) as relevant places that were "destroyed by bombing," forcing the family's hand to flee. 

"They didn't want Russian passport" and didn't want to move to Russia, Valentyna says, but her sons apparently could have gotten them and done that. They wanted to be Ukrainian, she says. Oleksandr's brother Vitaly left first, securing a home in Bucha, and the rest moved later on. As Velentyna says "the elder son" (Vitaly) helped buy their house - "the other son who has been rescuing us all our lives ... wanted to save us from the war in Donetsk, but the war came here." Until then, she says life was good. Oleksandr shows videos of the family singing Ukrainian patriotic songs, and little Matvii wanted to fight the Russians already, Valentyna says. "The woman speaks beautiful Ukrainian." Suspilne says.

Geolocation Stuff

Warsaw Highway: I've seen this correlating with the E373, or the eastern part also called M-07. E.g. Giorgi Revishvili on Twitter uses that term for the M-07 between Vorzel and Bucha's western outskirts. To cross this inside the city and then wind up at the UTEM plant is to drive north.

"Lech Kaczynski street" doesn't come up on Yandex or Google maps, but as Collapse Into Now found, it's another name for Chkalova street - I found a 2016 Bucha Rada statement on the name change honoring "Lech Kaczynski, a knight of the Order of Yaroslav the Wise of the 1st degree" - also president of Poland to 2010, when he died in a plane crash some blame on the Russians (Wikipedia), as he was en route to commemorate the 1940 Katyn massacre, blamed on the Russians. 

Hrebinka: (Hrebinky on Yandex Maps, Dzerzhyns'koho St on Google maps.) - tank position at #9 - Google Maps street view, 2015 - view from there across football field sees tanks: Volodomyr's grandson Roman has a video said to be March 4 showing several tanks near the UTEM plant, Just from the view as shared from a phone, I can't make out the machines, but I can match it to a view from Hrebinka street, next to unit 715 looking back at Lech Kaczysnki street across the neighboring football field. Noting later the article includes a sharpened direct view - about as I read it, with 2 vehicles visible. Roman also had a later view of 715 already stuck in front of their house, but not of the process. 

Car position: Bucha 22 with the aftermath photo above, compared to a later view of the scene showing the UTEM plant across the street. 

Peripheral video and reports:

Epicenter: well-known, plainly visible in the 11:53 video - street view, Jan 2022 - 11:43 video is between Epicenter and the new Avenir Plaza to its east - street view Oct. 2021 

The Irpin-based Linevich Group recently opened a housing center in Bucha behind the new Avenir Plaza - Facebook page shares the center's 12/29/2021 grand opening with Mayor Fedoruk and a live band and lasers- FB post Feb. 21 advertises the place's charms - no photos or street view I could find to show that corner with the Linevich Group sign, but the sidewalk style matches the far corner (as seen in 11:53 video), as does the left-hand view of an apparent tree-lined highway divider, which makes for no left turn, as announced by a sign there. The tanks seen would be facing east / northeast on Nove highway, but seem to be parked at the moment. 

March 4 3:07 video: see here - NYT: map includes this spot with E-W streets (doesn't matter much which one) and Deputatska makes the most sense as the "end" of the street the Russians would be at, be it passing north or south or turning up his street.   

Big map including other stuff to show how the incident could make sense with known, plausible, or suggested Russian movements ... IF this really happened on the 5th.

RFE/RL Witnesses and Question About the Bucha Massacre

July 2, 2022

(rough, incomplete - last update July 12)

Geolocating Where "Roman" Was Killed 

HRW: "On March 5, on the northeast end of Yablunska Street, a man who wished to remain anonymous and his son-in-law, Roman, were hiding in their basement with their family due to the intense shelling and gunfire in the area. At about 4:30 p.m., the man said, when things were quieter, they opened their front gate to assess the damage. As Roman stepped out of the yard, his father-in-law heard a muffled sound and Roman fell to the ground. “I approached him and asked him if he was okay, and he just started moaning,” the man said. “I saw his coat from the left side was torn open.”

"He and another family member immediately dragged Roman into the house. Roman’s sister-in-law, Tetiana, said they tried unsuccessfully to call a hospital and the Ukrainian territorial defense forces for help. Roman suffered all night and died the following morning at about 8 a.m.."

NYT Month of Terror: Referring to March 5th: "That afternoon, a father and his son stepped out of their gate to go for a walk along their street, Yablunska, or Apple Tree Street. “They shot my son,” his father, Ivan, said. “I was next to him. It would be better if it had been me.” ... “He was suffering the whole night and died at 8.20 am,” Ivan said of his son. The family buried him in the front garden under a huge mound of earth. “It’s very hard to bury your child,” Ivan said. “I would not wish that on my worst enemy.”"

RFE/RL or Radio Svoboda video report, narrated by reporter Levko Stek: a local who didn't want to talk on camera but had a relative killed, he thinks by a sniper. Man: On March 5, a sniper appeared. A sniper killed my son-in-law on the street before the curfew 

near that brown gate (pointing to his left)

"[the sniper] kept killing everyone who showed up on that street." 

Stek: Everyone on the street? 

"I don't know for sure. Shots were fired. I didn't go out there."

 ''They Killed People Systematically': Bucha Residents Allege War Crimes By Expelled Russian Forces - YouTube  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaCD0XlxYgA

Son vs. son-in-law: assuming son-in-law with added affection. 

The Times said Ivan had "asked that only his first name be published. Many residents in Bucha were frightened after weeks under Russian occupation and asked that their surnames not be published for fear of retribution at a later stage." 

But then the accompanying map places this killing - and where Ivan could be found, whatever his face. This correlates to just east of the new roundabout across from the new track housing with great windows, where 4 executed men were later seen, one with his hands tied. They note the mound of earth. If that's accurate, how many Ivans with a dead son/son-in-law named Roman and a grave in the yard can there there be at that dot on the map? I don't mean to give any tips to would-be retributors, but they wouldn't need any help, if they existed. The New York Times showed them right where to go. 

The RFE/RL video shows the man on camera, just not his face. He wears an old blue jacket with white stripes on the cuffs, and stands by a basic brown fence and gate with piled earth and then gravel to his left - not much to identify it by. But then the camera shows a view back from the west, looking over the more recent bodies - the pedestrian sign's top right corner looks down the line of small trees in front of his place. - He says he didn't go out there much, but as soon as you maybe don't see him, there's "Ivan," out there gathering intel, as it were. 

Furthermore, all the other shots in the video's first half are in the same area, including where Stek explains how his witness didn't want to be on camera - that's filmed from the same spot (revisited 2 days later). The stacks of paving stones behind him on the left are immediately across from the place, and those are the same small trees on his right, same brown fence behind them, and a roof of what must be Ivan's house.

Yandex Maps and Google Maps street view compared with an Azov Battalion drone view of March 30 and footage of "Ivan" at the site allow a clear placement to 354 Yablunska. That's pretty exactly where the New York Times mapped it happening.

In the view above, and even better below (March 23 drone view) there's a front garden partly visible, maybe with Roman buried in it. (below in white, and/or the space to the left, including under the trees) But another mound of earth the right size for that is seen clearly ... outside the fence. But if that's where he was buried, why and by whom? Weren't they afraid of the sniper? ( “It’s very hard to bury your child,” Ivan said.)

That would be very odd. Maybe this is some other dirt mound and we just can't see the grave in the yard. Add 7/12: Yeah. The house down the way has 2 such mounds of dirt. Ivan's at least has a pile of gravel next to it. There are paving stones stacked in 2 other spots along the street. Clearly, an area-wide paving project was underway. Drone view March 12 or 13 via CNN shows better the mounds - and might show the grave, less obvious but next to the driveway. Oddly, by this time, two other bodies have been killed in about the spot Roman was (dark blob in the street). These two, seemingly male, perhaps a father and son, were seen in the same spot unburied in early April, the furthest bodies to the east. A presumably Russian tank is seen plying the street, just off frame here to the west. But none of them ever came to remove and hide this evidence.

Moving on ... 

Other open question: did they step out just for a smoke or a walk past the gate, or maybe to film the Russian positions to help get them killed, or perhaps even to shoot at the Russians themselves? In the line to be shot is in the same line to shoot. Either way, the Russians might have asked the same question and then opted to end the question rather than finding the answer. Other possibilities, less and more sinister, also exist.

Oleksandr

Another man the same reporter was steered to also left off his family name, giving only Oleksandr.  He speaks of 3 killings of a certain batch of 10 people hiding in a certain building around 203 Yablunska on an unclear date ("the first day," where the Russians first came on Feb. 27, but maybe meaning March 3, when some witnesses have Russian forces first taking up residence here?),

Oleksandr - same video, second half

"[The Russian troops] came here on February 27. People were hiding in that building. There were six men and four women. They killed three men out of six." He points to the west-southwest at the corner of building 203A, the one closest to Yablunska street. This makes most sense as a single event on the 27th, which we've never heard about and could hardly fit with the day's events - but when he's asked how they were killed, Oleksandr goes into a breakdown by days. 

2/27 or 3/3: "On the first day, they shot Yevhen on the street for no obvious reason. No one knows why." No victim of that name known to me, and no deaths here known on either day.  

2/28 or 3/4" The next day, they shot Leonid. That morning, he showed them his documents and said that he lived here. He was shot in the back when he turned around." (gestures towards graves). A man who lived nearby  - Valerii Kizilov, 70, ouse geolocated to 64 Vodoprovidna (exp. elsewhere) was reported shot by soldiers sometime on the 4th. On either day, that too seems a new story.  

2/28 or 3/4, or a later day: "They killed the third man when they were drunk. They told him to hand over their mobile phones. He brought the phones, and they shot him and then threw a grenade at him. He was buried in pieces without his head. It was horrible." (points to graves) That's a strange story we've never heard. The guy blown up AND shot, admittedly for no logical reason ("drunk") - after collaborating with the Russians by delivering the phones of locals ... likely just blown up by a mortar shell or the like, maybe from the Kiev side, and thus re-branded. Maybe an Azov Battalion drone was used. Maybe it was the mindless and corrupted "orcs." WEither way - what remarkably poor luck had this building at the edge of no-man's land and Kiev's defense by artillery. 

Then off that list, to others killed in the area, and maybe keeping to an early March chronology Oleksandr continues: "My brother was killed on March 5 at around 5 o'clock when he was walking to a cellar. He was buried over there." He mentions this matter-of-factly, almost in passing. Similar to how "Ivan" tends to discuss his son-in-law "Roman."

Is this Roman's brother? How many men were killed around 5pm on the 5th while walking or vaguely stepping out and were then buried, rather than left out to rot like many? We've seen some buried here, but still, this initially grabbed my attention, inspiring me to double-check a previous geolocation of this scene. But having placed it all, he points roughly the opposite direction to Roman's grave, and he knows his directions. he points roughly east (or northeast by Bucha's local orientation), an unclear distance, perhaps to where Roman had since been re-buried, or perhaps to where some else we haven't heard about was buried whenever.

Continuing with this witness anyway: The reporter Stek says "It looks like those were not the only cases," showing some 4 other graves in the area - maybe including that brother. 

Oleksandr: They killed people systematically. A sniper boasted that he'd killed two people through windows. He just shot them when he spotted them in that nine-story building." That's not much of a system, but the sniper personally boasted of it, and Oleksandr learned about it. Maybe just drunk soldiers talking loudly in peoples' yards, etc. Anyway "It wasn't an accident or a military necessity. It was an execution of civilians. They were just killing us. Over there, there are people shot with their hands tied behind their backs. It's murder." 

- looking east and up, he means Vodoprovidna 62 - the only 9-story around, hence "the") Another local in the same video, Viktor, means the same when he says: "Another [body] was in the nine-story building. I saw a hole in the forehead. It happened a week ago, more or less."

The same man speaks again with even more knowledge and authority, in a June 9 RFE/RL video, as Oleksandr Konovalov. Close-captioning not available, and I can't understand Ukrainian, so for now the decription and the viuduals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UcSEgTPvC4

Counted 11 corpses under the house: unique testimony and footage from a resident of Buchi

"The Red Guardsman who took hospital workers and patients hostage in the city of Bucha is facing 12 years behind bars. On his order, fellow officers fired large-caliber machine guns at the building of the medical institution, and the suspect himself forced one of the people there." (?? I don't know this story at all)

"And although there have been no Russian troops in Buch for several months, the locals continue to talk about the horror of what they experienced during the occupation."

"In particular, Radio Liberty correspondent Taras Levchenko spoke with a 50-year-old resident of Buchi, under whose house 11 people were killed. The man's own brother also died from the bullets of the occupiers. And he himself found weapons, documents and other evidence of the presence of the Russian military on the territory of Ukraine. In addition, he filmed the movement of their columns, and also, after the fiercest battles, Russian equipment and the bodies of dead Russian soldiers, even up close."

Standing atop maybe every abandoned tank on Vokzalna street is something I don't think I've seen anyone else do. Composites of his couple of unique videos:

Konovalov his phone out, pointing directions, running through names and details like a police detective working the case. He shows photos, documents, Russian patches, passports, credit cards he and maybe some friends have found and just collected, from those killed on the 27th, or whenever. Maybe he's at a police station there? It looks like someone's home. 

...

He knows it all by now, finally discovering the 11 further bodies beneath "his house" at 203B? He shows dismal lodgings in a basement, apparently being the one entered by this staircase on the corner of that building.

Further Discoveries? 

 I have never heard of any 11 bodies in one location, here or anywhere in Bucha. This raises some questions like why was it never reported before? Or if it was, how did I miss that? 

I'll try and get some translation to help shed some light, any perhaps do some further research no this, and might report back below. 

...