Who Killed Karina Yershova?

May 11, 2022

Karina Yershova is one of the more famous victims of the Bucha Massacre - a bright beauty of 23 who managed a sushi bar as she saved for college, until she was brutally killed under unclear circumstances. 

Incendiary early reports appeared on April 13, saying Yershova was only 16 years old when she was abducted, raped, tortured and killed by drunken Russian "orc" occupiers. The photograph at right was one of a few widely used.

Her case was one illustration of an alleged system of rape with genocidal intent. Ukraine's ombudsman for human rights Lyudmyla Denisova says they're documenting several such cases, just in Bucha during its one-month occupation: "About 25 girls and women aged 14 to 24 were systematically raped during the occupation in the basement of one house in Bucha. Nine of them are pregnant," she said. "Russian soldiers told them they would rape them to the point where they wouldn't want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children." (BBC)

"Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group" (KPHG) would report: Russian troops "raped and shot her dead, flinging her body into one of the mass graves that these ‘soldiers’ brought with their so-called ‘Russian world’." Alternately, they say her body was "hurled into the mass grave."   

Bucha's City Council posted an account on Facebook that was long on grisly details of what the Russians did. Like the rest, it was short on evidence the Russians actually did it: 

"The girl was caught on the street, tortured and raped, eventually shot in the head." ... "most of her fingernails were missing, as if she was trying to protect herself," even though "her hands were burned to the bone, with the silver rings on her fingers that she always wore" - they cite her stepfather Andriy Derenko as interviewed for the UK Daily Mail to add that her body was covered with cuts.  "A tourniquet to stop bleeding was found on her leg, presumably from an earlier gunshot wound." 

KHPG: "Karina was buried in Bila Tserkva [some 90 km south of Kyiv], with her mother stopped from trying to open the coffin at the funeral.  The Council reports that the police told Karina’s parents that she had been tortured and killed, but omitted some of the most horrific details.  Karina’s stepfather says only that they believe it possible that she was raped, and that they had only been allowed to see the upper part of her body."

Rape sounds assumed, but with signs of struggle supporting it - an apparent gunshot in the legs and cuts all over could both result from shelling and shrapnel - issues with her hands sound relevant but unclear - some victims' fingers and hands shrivel up and appear "burned" somewhat black by frostbite after being left out in the cold, sometimes after a lonely shelling death. But a struggle using the fingernails doesn't fit so well with that.  Whatever the full story, it seems that abuse and likely rape were part of it.  

KHPG wrote "Karina Yershova fled with her parents from the Russians who seized control of Donetsk in 2014." They're ethnic Russians who fled Donetsk - which Russians never seized - either because they didn't approve of the votes for independence cast by their fellow citizens, or to avoid the violence Ukraine perpetrated in response to that vote. 

Still the family had the audacity to keep speaking Russian until Karina was killed. Now her stepfather Andriy Derenko tells Ukraine 24 (via DW - name given wrongly as Dereko) "I'm ashamed to speak Russian. I will learn Ukrainian." 

To KHPG: “We hate them”, Andriy Derenko, Karina’s stepfather, says. “We are from the Donetsk oblast where almost everybody speaks Russian, however I hate Russians for killing a Russian-speaking girl.  I’m now ashamed that I speak Russian [and] hate ‘Russian world’.  The Russian soldiers are not people, they’re beasts.” 

DW: "[Karina's] parents still don't know exactly what happened to her" and have been "left in horrendous uncertainty." Mr. Derenko for one sounds quite sure Russians did it, to the point of rejecting his own Russian identity. But the actual basis for that is not so clear from the outside. It's probably not clear from their "inside" view either, informed as it is by Kyiv's police, in cooperation with the anti-Russian neo-Nazis of the Azov Battalion. 

Chronology

Sources agree pretty well that Ms. Yershova was last seen voluntarily leaving her home, on March 10, in a civilian car, and that there is not a single known fact as to where she was for the next six days. Then a woman thought to be her was brought by Russian soldiers, wounded but alive, to another spot on the 16th. There, in front of witnesses, she was executed, there along with an elderly couple dragged into the picture for unclear reasons. 

In more detail now, let's consider the later killing first.

Kyiv Independent: "Bucha resident Mykola lives nearby. He told the Kyiv Independent that he knows how Karina died. He asked to be identified by his first name only for safety reasons. According to him, on March 16, Russian soldiers brought the already wounded Karina to the house of his neighbors, an elderly couple, Viktor and Natalya Mazokha." 

“They brought a wounded girl to them. I don’t know what happened next, but a soldier unleashed a volley of machine gunfire at the ground, then an officer came and shot all three of them,” Mykola told the Kyiv Independent. 

"Mounting allegations of sexual violence in Ukraine" DW News, May 3, reporting by Rebecca Ritters - short version on Twitter

DW witness Valerii (also just using a surname) says a soldier set down a wounded Karina at his apartment building's entrance, then he took her in his arms and carried her over there (to a small dirt lot across the street, to the north as it turns out) and "then another soldier shot her." He and DW are careful to maintain Valerii wasn't sure if this really was Karina Yershova.

The other executions aren't mentioned, but a shallow grave, perhaps 3 bodies wide, is shown, where "police told Karina's parents they found her body." That should clear up doubts about the murdered woman's identity, assuming this spot really is just north of Valerii's building (it's not easy to geolocate and confirm, like the apartment building was - see below)

Note the sandbags on both sides weren't dug up from the grave. Who buries sandbags? These suggest this wasn't dug as a grave but as a weak foxhole for soldiers to shelter in and fire from. I couldn't say whose side that would be or when, except that implicitly, it was there by March 16.

Next, let's look at the home where Ms. Yershova was last seen before that. KHPG noted "Social media reports asking for help in finding the young woman say that she disappeared on 10 March." The DW report shows a stairwell: "this is the last place we're sure Karina was seen alive - the stairs outside her flat. It was March 10th."  

Her neighbor Vyacheslav Chumak told the Kyiv Independent the last time he saw Karina was in "early March," over a span of days, starting with her on the stairs on the 8th or 9th, and ending on the 10th. 

"He found her sitting in the stairwell. Karina said she couldn’t enter her apartment as she had no keys. Chumak invited her home. He and his wife fed Karina and asked her what happened. She told them that Russian soldiers had stopped her on the street during curfew and detained her. She had to stay overnight in their barracks... In the morning they let her go but took away her phone, Karina told Chumak." Perhaps they also took her keys? 

"Karina’s neighbor went on" with some confusing details about the night: “She told us that they had gotten drunk. One of the soldiers had his leg shot near his ass, the other one was run over by a tank or an infantry vehicle, she said.” The soldiers were drunk after the injuries? Did she get drunk with them? (presumably not, but use of "they" allows for that.) There's no mention of rape at this point, but they took her phone and she seems to be lacking her keys. 

As this story goes, Karina took a short nap at Chumak's place, then somehow "managed to get into her apartment." Then, he told the Kyiv Independent:

In a day or two, a light blue car with the letter “V” – one of the symbols Russian troops put on vehicles in their war against Ukraine – arrived to pick up Karina.

According to Chumak, the driver was an acquaintance of the owner of the apartment Karina rented. 

“She packed her bags into this car and waved my wife goodbye,” Chumak said. 

“We never saw her again.”

That's an interesting detail. She agreed to be driven off by "an acquaintance" of her landlord - maybe put in contact by her landlord who was out-of-town, maybe to help get into her apartment without keys the other day? He (or she?) drove Karina off in a suspicious car that kind of points to Russian evil. 

Questions and Possibilities

DW relates her disappearance on March 10 and adds "after this, everything becomes unclear." Indeed, and that's actually a problem. 

Why would she agree to get in a Russian-marked car, or why was someone she knew and trusted driving one? Maybe he (or she?) said they could get Karina's phone and/or keys returned? Packed bags suggests otherwise, like she was going somewhere else to stay for a while, as if Bucha were now a war zone, which it was, and many people were evacuating in those days, as corridors were first opened on the 10th. FWIW, white armbands are often worn by people escaping in any direction, but a V might help for someone, civilian or otherwise, headed north to pass Russian lines or into Russian arranged corridors. 

Was this acquaintance allied with the Russians, or possibly with the other side, or just with himself? Who in that mix would then abuse her for days, before a couple of apparent Russian soldiers would finish her off in semi-public 6 days later?

Russian links in review, and all just alleged/assumed, based on varying evidence: 

- arrested overnight in early March, swift release 

- a V on the civilian car driven by a civilian of no known link to Russians, except for that implied by a painted letter 

-  Russian soldier and officer placed at her awkward semi-public killing on the 16th. 

- For six days we have no direct evidence where she was, being harmed by whom.

The landlord's acquaintance could be: 

- a Russian accomplice who delivered her back to the Russian soldiers (hence the V)

-  some creepy acquaintance of Karina's landlord who took advantage to kidnap and rape the poor woman - an obvious possibility in general terms, but let's not leap to conclusions (the V might be to help blame his crime on the Russians)

- someone trying to help her evacuate the city and he too was a victim as they were stopped on the road and Russian soldiers detained them (the V worked to their disadvantage)

- or maybe they happened on a Ukrainian force that didn't like that V and opened fire on their car, then maybe rescued her from the scene, stopped the bleeding so she wouldn't die, and then proceeded to abuse her before finally killing her.

- or hey, maybe the above except the Ukrainian saviors then got ambushed by Russians who again detained Karina. But probably not, and the above scenarios seem like the ones to chose from.

Mapping

The DW report from the scenes of the crime allow some geolocation of relevant sites.

First, where she was living until March 10, when she agreed to be driven off 

coordinates: 50.5507567, 30.2268343 - 8, Energetykiv St., northwest corner - pretty well in the center of Bucha, less than one block east of the City Council building. Hat tip to Friedrich for the actual find. 

Next, where she was killed - 50.5507567,30.2268343 - unique arrangement of buildings with same style and color schemes (2 visible in Google maps street view), wrapped around a big parking lot and a consistent cluster of smaller homes - red circle for the entrance where Valerii spoke - grave/foxhole site not clear, but implicitly somewhere north of that building entrance, possibly even off the upper edge of this map. 

Both sites together on the map with areas of control notes:

Control areas are especially unclear in these days around March 12 "when the Russians arrived" suddenly to the city's north - when they had been occupying it already. The reality may even be acknowledged - belatedly, on the 15th - as where Kiev's forces had recently arrived and re-established control over nearly every bit of Bucha (some time between March 9 and 15). Then Russia is shown suddenly back in charge of the entire city on March 16. 

So even with these spots established, the map shows Russia in charge on both relevant dates. But that's just the kind of literal reading you can't do with these maps. It's hard to say just how this fits in the unclear TRUE situation in those days, except we can say it's quite possible the Russians were not in charge. And even if they were, the relevance of that is unclear to one civilian car driving to a selected locale.

It's worth noting 4 alleged executions 2 days later, almost due south on Yablunska street, previously reported as 3/23 but now said to be on the 18th (and likely so, although execution vs. shelling isn't so clear) - Ukrainian prosecutors say by "Russian officer" Sergei Kolosei - who seems to be a Belarussian guy who hasn't left Belarus in 2 years and has never been in the Russian or military or anyone else's military ... but executions are reported, by whoever, allegedly Russian/allied, 2 days after Karina and the Mazokhas. on-site executions by supposed Russians in these few days. Per my inexact information, Ukraine had access to the southeast part of Bucha (including the Yablunska execution site) perhaps the whole time, and to all of the whole east, including Yershova's execution site, by the 19th, with local presence likely enough from 16th forward.