Bucha Massacre: "When the Russians Arrived"

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< Basement Executions in April - "When the Russians Arrived"

May 1, 2022

rough, incomplete ... finished on...

Intro: Who Abducted Five Aid Workers Three Weeks Before the Ukrainians Murdered Them at a Former Russian Base?

My earlier post "Basement Executions in April" introduces this case, where the tortured and executed bodies of five men were found in a cellar of a former children's camp apparently used as a base for Russian forces. That included my initial geo-confirmation of the site at camp Promenystyy (trans. radiant, shiny), noting the white armband on one victim, and more. My most important addition there was to observe strong indications that these men were probably killed late on April 2 or just hours before or after that (faintly wet blood in a dry environment on April 3 at an unclear time, and fading but present rigor mortis as seen early afternoon on the 4th - this usually fades away in ~36 to 48 hours). That's not a real expert view, but it is reason to realize we should get one.

Dan Rivers, for ITV video report, had this basement execution as one of three "senseless" crimes they sought to reconstruct (seeing it as senseless, BTW, suggests one will not be sensing the truth, which is never truly senseless). "Forensic experts are investigating the date of the shooting and haven’t yet made their results public." The results probably won't be published or they won't be truthful. That's because late on April 2 or any time close to that is after Russian forces had left the entire city "as early as" March 30, and no later than the mayor concurring on the evening of the 31st, and they had the wrong color of armbands. 

The Russians could have left "sleeper cells," I suppose, active into April. But in contrast, the Ukrainian and foreign-backed, mercenary-staffed Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion was there and has openly published radio communications of midday on April 2 seeming to approve, and perhaps record, their own summary execution of locals who were found without the approved blue armbands ... people just like the five men executed in that basement, it seems, some hours after that audible evidence. (see here for now, but this subject still deserves more attention - Meduza piece etc. f/c...)

It was also on April 2 that Ukraine's security services publicly announced an operation targeting Russian collaborators, besides booby traps, unexploded shells, etc. The special forces regiment credited with this is called "SAFARI," like they were shooting game, and said it was already underway (for hours? for days?). That may not be the same exact thing as what Azov was running, but whatever the case, these are the crews known to be cleaning the streets and maybe basements of Bucha when these five men were killed.

Here I'll mainly cite three reports - the ITV one, which heard from the sister of one of those killed - plus Ukrainian Mother Relives Horror of Son's Execution in Bucha Basement by James Longman, Oleksiy Pshemyskiy, Tatiana Rymarenko , and Haley Yamada, for ABC News - and the most detailed report hearing from several sources: The last brave acts of the five Ukrainian men found dead and bound in a Bucha basement by Nathan VanderKlippe, for The Globe and Mail. The latter gives the names, ages and occupations of the five men: 

Viktor Prutko, 24, installed doors and dabbled in advertising. 

Volodymyr Boychenko, 35, worked with a blacksmith. 

Serhii Matiushko, 41, was a labourer. 

Valeriy Prutko, 47, did plumbing work. 

Dmitriy Shumeister [ITV gives Shulmeister], 56, had just started a cleaning company.

The same report adds "none [of the 5] had any military affiliation, friends and relatives said." But for what it's worth, ITV shows Viktor Prutko in a military uniform, presumably regular Ukrainian. That must have been past, but if so, at age 24, he might be expected to serve again in 2022, with martial law and conscription for men aged 18-60 announced February 24. But instead he was stuck behind Russian lines, not escaping to join the fight but helping others to evacuate the city - perhaps to the north, perhaps in conjunction with Russian forces (see below). 

ITV heard the men stayed - at some point when others were leaving over some worsening danger, like approaching Russians, perhaps - to "help organise the evacuation of other civilians," but "Their activities soon attracted the attention of occupying Russian forces who eventually captured them, tortured them and killed them" ... over their staunch opposition to anyone evacuating? Maybe Mr. Prutko's failure to report for service helped set them off? 

Key here: the men had gone missing, presumed abducted by the Russians, back on March 12, In my initial reading of fewer reports, it seemed like they were trying to get people out ahead of Kiev's forces returning in April, when they were perhaps swiped off the road on the 2nd, dragged to the vacated Russian based, murdered, then filmed as Russian victims after a 36-48-hour wait. 

But if they were abducted 2-3 weeks earlier ...this was when the Russians were firmly in charge - or so it would seem, as far as most of us know. And their remains were found at that terrible camp that served as a Russian base.

some oddities in the reporting ... to ITV, Tatiana Shulmeister speaks of her brother Dmitryo being held for a time - and other reports are clear the men vanished weeks earlier, on the morning of March 12 - as they helped people flee the city. I wasn't aware of any specific cause to flee that occurred anywhere near March 12, but maybe ... the city had been and would stay dangerous, and many evacuations were long overdue. It seems agreements on "green corridors" was only achieved by around the 10th, and there were two parallel routes - a Ukrainian one to the west and a Russian one to the north (see below)

VanderKlippe's report for The Globe and Mail relates how hundreds of people from Hostomel and Bucha were sheltering in a bunker beneath a prison. Then "On March 10, authorities" - presumably Russian -  "emptied the bunker, evacuating some people to other parts of Ukraine and sending others home" in the Russian-occupied cities. But the 5 men continued helping people, operating partly from "Campa, a tennis club serving as a staging grounds for people fleeing." An evacuation corridor had been opened “and they were taking people away,” said resident Victor Petrovich. 

Campa is at the far northern edge of Bucha and its municipal park in the north, according to Google Maps labels. The likely Russian  base at camp  Promenystyy is just south of this, in the west middle of the park. 

Globe and Mail's report says the men "set out again on March 12. They told different stories to different people. Ms. Stupnyk heard that they planned to deliver medicine. Mr. Shumeister, an accomplished cook who enjoyed singing Soviet pop songs, told his spouse Victoria Verde he wanted to retrieve documents left in a car he had abandoned during heavy shelling early in the Russian invasion." This isn't a contradiction, of course; a single true mission might have several reasons. 

Viktor Petrovich watched the men arrive at Campa in a blue Peugeot van, and leave again "in the direction of Bucha’s council buildings" - that is, south - "on a route that passed the Shiny [promenytsyy] children’s centre, located less than a kilometre away." “They left with the car at 9:30 a.m.,” Ms. Stupnyk said. “They were going to deliver medication. But they never came back.”

Interestingly, when Galyna Matyoshko spoke to ABC News, she "said her son Serhiy was helping evacuees when the Russians arrived. “They came like a hurricane, causing so much pain. For what?” said Matyoshko." ... "According to Matyoshko, her son was helping evacuate women and children from the houses near the Bucha summer camp when he disappeared along with a friend who was doing the same on March 12." 

To ITV, the Russian occupiers "eventually captured" the men operating under their noses, smuggling people out, for a while. Here, the Russian marauders swoop in with cruelty, like some non-occupiers. By the clinical signs, these men died shortly after Ukrainian forces arrived - you could say like a hurricane. But when they went missing at about the same spot on the 12th ... who might be arriving there and then? 

Long Thoughts on Who Ran Bucha Around March 12

It turns out this is an odd spot in the maps I've been citing, compiled by Ankara-based freelance journalist Dr. Abdullah Manaz, a supporter of Ukrainian forces. These are surely not exact or definitive, and it's not clear just what they are based on, but it seems like claims from Kiev, reflecting some of their own revisions and omissions - and the details at the town and district levels are vague, needing scaled up hugely to compare, and even then only giving some idea who had more influence over what areas on or near these dates. 

The image below compiles some cropped parts of Manaz maps for the relevant time span, some of the Kiev area in detail, and some nation-level, each with Bucha's outline sketched roughly in white. Purple is Russian-held "yesterday," and the red line shows changes by "today." According to this, the Russians steady, full Russian control of Bucha from March 5 on, same between 3/9 and 3/14 - but a strange and total one-day takeover by Ukraine appears on the 15th, extending to just where the men vanished ... March 10 map (link) -  skipping 11 because it's reflected 3/12 - all the same -  3/13 and 14 I didn't grab the links for (and my list of them all isn't handy), but as I show, they're the same.

No Manaz maps were published for March 15 and it - or maybe previous day's map - missed something that appears mysteriously with the 3/16 update (link). This shows Russia in full control again on the 16th (red line), after somehow holding only the northern and western oputskirts on the 15th. Both developments seem unexplained but of great interest. 

A similar thing happens in reverse with the maps of March 5 and 6 as Russia's reign of terror over Yablunska street was said to begin on the 5th, according to the map of the 6th. But on the 5th, Dr. Manaz heard Kiev still in control of the city as they nhad been from the 3rd. That traces official statements as related in the Wikipedia article Battle of Bucha: On March 3 it was "announced that Ukrainian forces recaptured Bucha." Russians were still resisting, but were "pushed into the city's outskirts." On the 4th "the city remained under Ukrainian control, despite Russian forces continuously launching attacks" and on the 5th the same; "Russian forces continued to attack Bucha." Then "Later, Arestovych stated that Russian forces had captured both Bucha and Hostomel, and were not allowing civilians to evacuate." 

It seems like Kiev had been denying progressive losses, then admitting total loss at the end of that. But it's interesting how officials seemingly decided late on March 5 that they had lost control earlier that day, and just didn't notice it at the time. Also, an insane killing spree had begun just then at the no-man's land of mortar alley on Yablunska street. (It's widely reported, based on verbal claims, that nearby snipers to the northwest started killing locals this day. But the visual evidence suggests most were killed with mortar shelling from southeast of Bucha, from outside the Russian-controlled area. As seen in a video dated March 7, and said to show aftermath of 2+ strikes on March 5, some 11 people were killed along Yablunska - most of those we'd first see strewn on the street plus 5 we couldn't see. Just one crater and one body were added later, sometime before the 12th. See mortar alley post. That is consistent with their being excluded from the area, for what it's worth.)

In fact the definition of the purple areas in the Manaz maps isn't so clear. Maps by the Institute for the Study of War employ a different criteria and show Bucha and everything around it as a vague, mostly  unchanging area of Russian "advance," not Russian "control" for the entire time, perhaps reflecting the mixed reality in which Kiev's forces could never really be excluded. 3/18: https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1504950017542533131 - crop from this below, Bucha traced on:

3/12 seems the same: https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1502767739722768396 - maybe ISW just don't track details that fine in these maps. The ISW daily report 3/12 doesn't mention Bucha, but says "Russian forces did not conduct offensive operations northwest of Kyiv for the second day in a row." They didn't hear about them arriving anywhere at this time, but didn't hear of them losing any ground either.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-12

Okay, so ... Was there a mid-March re-conquest by Ukraine somewhere in here, maybe with progressive gains over days that couldn't be published at the time? There's some evidence for this happening and then being admitted on the 15th, as some previously unseen footage surfaced "of abandoned Russian equipment reportedly in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv" that "can now be published" ( Telegram - Twitter) The scene has been geolocated as near Bucha Passage Mall - pretty much in the center of town (spot labeled in green on the map below) - well inside the vast areas mapped by Manaz as Ukrainian-held on or by the 15th. 

This might be old video from around the 3rd that "can NOW be published" but it was used to boost new claims: "The area has been cleared by our defenders" and it's implied that happened recently. (the weather seems too ambiguous to call) Maybe the same could "now be published" with no explanation on the Manaz maps, as it was, suddenly and with no explanation.

A Ukrainian news account on Twitter used a different photo of a long-ago charred AFV to report, on the 16th, "#Bucha - Russian scum is knocked out. Work to free people is underway. Special operation #APU continues." (assuming it's a new photo, it would be worth geolocating ... anyone want to do thart?)

A March 12 video: "Soldiers of the Azov Regiment showed what happened to the city of Bucha near Kyiv after the arrival of the occupiers" - filmed among the wrecked tanks on on Vokzal'na street, well inside the area of control mapped on 3/15, dated "March" and only appearing March 12. But this is most likely from around the 3rd. The extreme overcast weather, traces of snow, and snow actually falling supports that. 

Still... it seems Ukrainian forces, Neo-Nazi or otherwise, were operating over quite a bit of Bucha by March 15. Manaz maps re-traced to scale by highways, etc. - areas of interest noted. Again, this isn't certain or gospel, but it's based on something, and crucially, this shows a front line right at the Promenystyy camp and any checkpoint outside it, as well as everything one would pass if they made it any further south. It has that existing only by the 15th, but it was probably established earlier. All considered, I propose this fairly reflects the reality, and it was a brand-new fact, unknown to most, on the morning of March 12. 

 

Russian Arrests at City Council?

Add May 2, a detail I forgot about: https://interfax.com.ua/news/general/814280.html

"On Tuesday evening, March 15, the Russian occupants wreaked havoc in the administrative building of the Bucha city council and captured our employees and volunteers, who helped the residents of our city to the last under shelling," the Bucha city council on Facebook. The council itself had evacuated long before, but lower employees and others were operating there Who was shelling? Why wreak havoc? Good reasons to remove them would be to protect them from shelling, or from a massacre that would be blamed on Russia - Postulating a March 12 presence near camp Promenytsyy vs. UA attcak or RU "rescue" at city hall on the 15th ... seems plausible enough. They might be focused on different axes on different days. 

Sim cards removed from phones so the people couldn't be contacted, maybe so they could be killed, or taken to Russia - the Russians might say that was to prevent Ukrainian ops including rescue or drone attacks that use cell phone signals. All agree the captives were released the next day unharmed, as things calmed down and Russian control seemed clearer for the moment.   

Areas of Control and Different Evacuation Efforts

The reported evacuation point at Campa is still Russian-held this whole time. Russia says it was allowing, and was perhaps arranging, evacuations to the north, maybe with some civilian help... (see here, bottom) "The exits from Bucha were not blocked. All local residents were free to leave the town in northern direction, including to the Republic of Belarus." They said routes to the south were too unsafe; "the southern outskirts of the city, including residential areas, were shelled round the clock by Ukrainian troops with large-calibre artillery, tanks and multiple launch rocket systems." 

The bridge to Irpin passes through the described horror show, and it was used (adding after I've seen images of evacuation, all by foot, on March 12 and 24). But Kiev's arranged evacuations, beginning on the 10th or 11th after some earlier tries, was mainly to the east "through a pedestrian crossing on the blown-up bridge in Romanivka between Irpen and Novoirpinskaya highway (it is from there that the world's media have those sensual illustrative photos). Sometimes under fire." (Suspline) This rickety plank bridge would bring them, with just a few bags and often wet, to Horenka and then Kiev itself. Who was shooting or shelling the people crossing there is, of course, disputed, but it was Kiev that had blown up the bridge portion of this 4-lane highway suddenly, on February 25, to block the Russian advance. 

A northern, Russian-organized evacuation was also running, with actual roads and vehicles, perhaps in the face of a Ukrainian re-conquest, with people headed away from Kiev's forces. They call this sort of evacuation a kidnapping by the Russians, stealing people mainly to Russia for later use, or here in Belarus. They won't like accomplices to that. It's illegal for conscription-worthy Ukrainian men aged 18-60 to cross any border by free will. That's treason. So benefit of the doubt, they assume it was at gunpoint...

A Scenario: Brought Back to the Kidnapping Site

Any civilian helpers in an evacuation effort might wear white armbands as they drive around Russian forces, since that's a commonly-used IFF (identify friend or foe) sign. It's said everyone was forced to wear them, but what good is it to know who everyone is? 

One of the five victims wears this as seen after the murder - other might have worn them earlier but had them taken off, or took them off when they saw Ukrainian forces. Or they may have never worn the things, as they ducked back south to do some last heroic thing. 

Again, their group included a former solider freely operating in a Russian area, installing doors and helping people out instead of killing Russians - along with his uncle - another man who "enjoyed singing Soviet pop songs" - one or more in white armbands. I could maybe tell by the names, but some of them might ethnic Russians, maybe with matching sentiments the Western news reports have glossed over. And they got nabbed at or near this sudden - or eventual - temporary front line with the yellow-and-blue armband crew. 

And we can be fairly certain Ukrainians, likely Azov Battalion, eventually murdered the same volunteer aid workers; So logically, their kidnappers should be the same people, wherever exactly that happened. 

Or ... Since they hate people being evacuated so much, it must be the Russians who took the men? They just noticed these efforts only right there at the edge of their control at its lowest point, likely as they came under direct attack themselves? The Russians ran that camp and surrounding areas the whole time? Well,  ... that's not so clear at the time when the men were arrested there ... and it was definitely not the case when the same men were killed there. 

In between, the Russians did (or should have) run the camp, presumably the entire time. It would make a great base, and there's plenty sign of their presence. But how do we know that's where the men were held? It seems more like the other side who detained the men and later executed them. But they probably couldn't keep their prisoners at someone else's base in the interim, so that adds a wrinkle.

In the scenario I propose, the 5 men would be nabbed in what amounted to little more than a raid at the front line, letting the fact of their disappearance there become a recorded fact. Then they - again, probably being the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion or some criminal allies of theirs - would cart the men off and hold them in some other location, probably nearby in some corner of no-man's land they had made their own. 

They could let the Russians expend more effort reclaiming the city again, but then take it back again, starting right away (Manaz maps have full Russian control regained by 3/16, but the eastern half re-taken by Kiev as of the 19th). 

Finally, when the kidnapping scum (in this scenario) get back to this camp around April 2, they would simply haul the men back, kill them on-site, and let that magic work itself out. Hopefully no one would notice that the killings were committed after the Russians had left, when Ukraine was in charge, or that their kidnapping may have come amid an earlier Ukrainian encroachment, or that either way, their Ukrainian killers must have abducted them as well. 

Re-considering the photographs, it does seem the victims' clothes and hands are too grubby to be recently at liberty. It seems they had no basic hygiene, wherever they were held, were likely underfed and were possibly tortured.

At least three cars, scuffed and sideswiped and spray-painted V, were seen on the camp grounds - it's not clear how these relate. Are they from the March 12 arrest and left since, from other arrests in April? I haven't seen a blue Peugeot van, as the men were reportedly in at last sighting. Most logically, they would have been carted away in it, and wherever it wound up, the killers torched it if they were smart.

Questions are raised. Galyna Matyoshko said to ABC of her son Serhii Matiushko: “I don't know how long he was there, he lost half of his weight. I don't know if they fed him or not." Three weeks plus, they probably fed him a bit. But who were they?

Tatiana Shulmeister, to ITV, of her brother Dmitriy: “They were kept in that basement, got tortured and brutally abused, and after all that they got executed." They may have been kept in a different basement most of the time. 

Natalia Stupnyk to The Globe and Mail: Those responsible “are worse than animals,” Ms. Stupnyk said of Valeriy and Viktor Prutko. “I curse their entire family line for all of their abuses toward my husband and my nephew.” Fair enough. They may be the same people feeding us our news reports, providing witnesses speaking under extreme threat and from  confusion and ignorance engineered by the killers.

Galyna Matyoshko - who by the way was told her son had suffered far worse injuries than the official autopsy reported - said “I didn’t want to delete [the photos of his body]; I wanted the whole world to see it and know that it’s a fact,” she said. “I'm not holding on to them to hurt myself, I want everyone to know that this isn’t fake. That this is my son, that this happened to me and my son. ... You can’t even imagine this pain. My soul is crying. God forbid this happens to anyone.” Nothing to add to that except that real does not necessarily mean Russia did it, and that even if Russia didn't do it, his murder still deserves a real, truthful investigation and a semblance of justice, as do the others.

In Context

That might sound like a crazy scenario, but it really is crazy times. Consider the brutal "Russians" didn't just arrive at Bucha's north once at mid-month. They have reportedly swooped in on the city to murderous effect in consecutive waves, leaving different kinds of devastation in their wake, often closely filmed but not attacked by Azov Battalion drones:

* March 25-27, genuine and sizeable Russian military movements are halted - Russian forces caused unclear numbers of citizens injures and deaths, by heading to a bridge or by getting massively attacked right next to homes and in occupied vehicles. (that is, there was some pretty massive unacknowledged collateral damage from Kiev's desperate first moves to halt the Russians at Bucha and Irpin, and no reliable evidence I've seen for any Russian brutality then - admitting I've seen far from everything).

* They arrived again on March 3, from the west as they might, with a column of tanks turning north, towards city hall, where Kiev had or would announce control and raise the flag this same day (time frame unclear) - only a few seem to be marked V, while others aren't and others are unclear (that is, they might be Ukrainian with some captures, of which they had many) - a lead tank seeming to stand guard is watched by an Azov drone firing its cannon at a bicyclist on Yablunska street - the earliest reported killing there (but it looks like a car was already crushed at the same intersection)

* Again with the torture center, rape cellar, and high-rise snipers the Russians were back on mortar alley on March 4, reportedly sniping locals from the morning of the 5th and forward - but all we can SEE is shelling from Kiev way - https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-bucha-massacres-mortar-alley.html

* They run the town from this ruthless fringe to the north and the west, pretty fully and with an iron fist up to the 14th, or so, ...

* then they're back again on 3/16 after a mysterious UA offensive retook and lost almost all of Bucha in the span of 1-2 days ... or some conquest, perhaps around the 12th, was left unreported.

* Again the Russians arrived, or got extra brutal with torture and executions, in one area after the next across the south of Bucha, generally a bit after Manaz maps have Kiev's forces back in control, or whatever that is not shaded purple - killings on 3/20 and 3/25 in areas taken by 3/19 (eastern outskirts and mortar alley), tortures-killing of 11 men around the time of a 3/24 (or earlier) taking of the southwest quadrant. The more populous NW 1/3 was only taken after Russian forces withdrew on the 30th following talks and also under attack, and that included these 5 men killed probably on April 2.

* And maybe the Russians arrived again just after they left, maybe with some white-armband sleeper cells, to take credit for any of the early April clearance operation, or anything earlier, that simply cannot be back-dated enough. We'll see if that too emerges and becomes accepted newsfact.