Bucha Massacre Victim: Oleg Abramov

< Bucha Massacre: Victim Oleg Abramov

June 26. 2022

(slightly rough - updates June 28)

This victim of the "Bucha Massacre" is already the subject of an early post here, by blog member Petri Krohn: Monitor on Massacre Marketing: Who killed Oleg Abramov?. (BTW membership and blog authoring here is still possible, I think - so long as I approve it.)  This post will take a deeper dive into this sub-story.  

Petri raised a lot of questions, some of which weren't well-founded, or have been answered since. Others remain. For example, he saw no sign of decay, and took that as meaning a death well after the reported March 5. But it's quite hard to say much about the signs from the one low-resolution view we have, and under refrigeration or winter conditions, these signs can come on quite slowly. Inconclusive. A visual match with one of the victims at 144 Yablunska looked decent by photos, but is probably wrong; those men all have alternate identifications, and Petri didn't realize there probably was a shirtless victim right where Oleg was said to be and where a bloodstain could be seen later. 

Petri asked "Why would [the Russians] target Russian-speakers?" I'm not sure what that was based on - a misread video caption had given me that impression. But in my digging, I found Iryna saying to NBC news of the Russian people, including the occupying soldiers: "I always thought they were our bothers. I'm half-Russian myself." As such, Ukrainian ultranationalists likely had better motive to cause the family harm than the Russians would. This suspicious kind of irony - the Russians opting to burn bridges and kill "their own" as much as possible - keeps popping up with other Bucha Massacre victims: 

* Pro-Russian and anti-Fascist politician Oleksandr Rzhavsky allegedly killed by Russian invaders he was hosting when he poured the vodka too slowly, 3 years after someone murdered his son and had it called suicide. 

* Ethnic Russian Karina Yershova from Donbas who willingly climbed into a V-marked car before she disappeared March 6.

*Zoreslav Zamoysky, the Jewish journalist who remembered the massacre in Odessa, worried about Nazis, and was seen by some as "a supporter of the Russian world."

The same kind of "irony" played heavily in prior incidents like a January, 2015 rocket attack on Vostochniy, Mariupol. And for what it's worth, neo-Nazi thug Serhiy "Botsman" Korotkikh of the infamous Azov Battalion was involved both in that and, at a higher level, in Bucha. In Mariupol, he was amused at how "supporters of the Russian world" just midlessly killed each other. His men in Bucha - the "Botsman Boys" -  on April 2 openly discussed executing locals lacking the approved blue armbands (see here and note Korotkikh's response was that HE wasn't there, but off fighting on the Belarus border). 

Any such killings Azov or the Botsman Boys or their ilk carried out in Bucha would wind up blamed on the Russians, just like Mr. Abramov's killing was.

Intro

Oleg Oleksandrovych  Abramov, age 40, was a welder by profession. He lived with his wife Iryna Abramova (48), in a subdivided house owned by Iryna's father Volodmyr Abramov (72) on the SW corner of Yablunska and Vokzalna streets in Bucha. Igor (or Ihor) took Iryna's last name when they married, the New York Times reported, following on several interviews with Abramova. "They never had children, but Iryna said they had the perfect family: the two of them." 

According to Iryna and her father, Oleg was killed by Russian soldiers on the morning of March 5 2022 just days shy of his 41st birthday (3 sources specify morning, but none gives a more specific time). This is probably the date of a drone video showing a column of at least 19 tanks/AFVs and 3 support trucks stopped in southern Bucha. This was probably released by Azov's recon guy, Serhiy Korotkikh. It was first publicized as a March 3 video, when Kiev's forces claimed control of Bucha. But that may have just been a typo, as March 5 is a better fit in several ways.

The vehicles are presumably, but not certainly, Russian, judging by markings (some with a V, some apparently without), by their number and their movements, and by how they aren't attacked. They were headed west on Yablunska and had mainly turned north towards city center, one block west of Vokzalna. A forward set of two tanks was positioned a bit east of the rest on Yablunska, less than a block from the Abramov's house, when they were seen opening fire on a bicyclist, identified as Irina Filkina, as she rounded their corner (see here). To HRW, Iryna "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." This helps time the killing of Irina Filkina - verbally, at any rate - as even earlier on the morning of the 5th. 

One of these may be the single tank said to bring death to the Abramov's home shortly thereafter. New York Times: "Ruslan Kravchenko, one of the prosecutors, said different Russian units divided up control of Bucha and he believed members of Russia’s 76th Air Assault Brigade killed Oleh, based on video footage the Ukrainians obtained of Russian troop movements from that time."

Human Rights Watch: 

Iryna, 48, said that Russian soldiers shot at her two-story, multi-unit house on the corner of Yablunska and Vokzalna Streets at the start of their occupation on March 5. 

The soldiers said they were there to free them from the “Nazis” and demanded to know where the Nazis were hiding.“The soldiers accused us of killing people in Donbas,” Iryna said. “They accused us of killing the Berkut in Maidan as well [referring to the since-dissolved riot police unit that killed dozens of protesters during the 2014 Maidan protests in Kyiv]. They concluded that we were guilty and should be punished.” 

As consistently told, the soldiers took Oleg to the corner, stripped off his sweater, made him kneel, and shot him in the head, blowing off the right side. 

HRW: "She said a group of soldiers was standing no more than five meters away, “watching the event as if they thought it was theater.” Richard Engel, NBC News: "She thinks they did it to scare others in Bucha into submission." 

HRW: "Soldiers then told Iryna and Volodymyr to leave or they would be shot. ...  Russian forces ... ordered her to walk southeast down Yablunska Street." It seems thetwo sheltered somewhere else during to occupation, and they lived to tell this tale, quite a few times to a lot of journalists. Below: Volodomyr and Iryna Abramov returned to the scene, from a well-made Hromadske video. 

Oleg's body would remain at the corner until the end of March or early April, after the Russians had left the entire city. A possibly shirtless body seems to appear in a close-up drone video of March 25 (at right w/labels), We can see his head and/or the dark blood near it, what seems like a bare, bent arm, and nothing else clear, as the body seems to be mostly covered with a torn-down banner. 

After that, bloodstains and maybe small bits of brain matter can be seen in that same spot, along with the banner (NBC News videdo). Below: Iryna Abramova standing at the same corner (Hromadske video). Note the holes poked in the fence. We'll come back to that below (see House Notes)

Only in April, after the Russians had left the entire city, was the body moved a bit south on that sidewalk and briefly seen on video (below) just before it's bagged up and removed. This is the best view we have of his body. It's not even clear from this that he has much of his head missing, but it seems likely (and the rest seems a bit darkened with decay) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idux4708A5Y - https://twitter.com/StratcomCentre/status/1511582282708135938

Story Inconsistencies? 

A few important story variations could all be down to mistranslation and erred inference. But they are notable, and might indicate a partly fictional story with inadequate coaching. 

BBC Indonesia: "A Russian tank pulled up outside. Their home was shelled. As it was burning," the soldiers ordered Oleg to come outside. This is the only version where shelling is blamed, rather than a grenade.

BBC: "The soldiers took Oleg out beyond the gate on to the pavement, Volodymyr said, and threw a grenade in through the front door of the house that exploded with a deafening bang and set the house on fire." That sounds like the grenade was tossed after everyone was out. Otherwise, the explosion came first.

Roman Sukhan video: Volodomyr relating the story from all over the scene. At one point he says soldiers threw a grenade in the window, pointing to which one. But then he also says (1:40) "the projectile is flying," makes sound effects like an incoming shell and 3 booms, and "glass flies out." 

NYT: "On the morning of March 5, Iryna said, Russian soldiers attacked her house. They threw a grenade through the window, which started an enormous fire, and marched her and Oleh outside at gunpoint."

"On the night of March 4, they heard huge trucks passing in the road. The next morning, their house was rocked by a grenade, which set off a fire. Gunshots rang out. Their gate was blasted open. Four Russian paratroopers stormed in, she said. Three were young, maybe 20, and the commander was in his 30s."

Whose trucks were driving which way the night before?

Hromadske video: Abramova: "...on the morning of March 5, noise and explosions were heard. A grenade was thrown at our window, and immediately the shooting started at the windows and doors." 

Richard Engel, NBC: "Russian soldiers threw a grenade through the window, and set fire to the house."

Daily Banner: And then on March 4, Russian vehicles passed again. On March 5, we woke up ... then something exploded literally next to us. ... after they threw a grenade into our house, they knocked out the gate and went into the yard." This report and some other mention they were trying to start a gas generator right before the blast. One might wonder if that exploded, but they seem to think it was something else, and it probably was. 

To Ukrainian "Vadim" (standing in front of Oleg's body, moved to the shack along the southeast of the main house: "March 5, morning - we were sitting at home.  We have a house split in half - we were sitting in this part and we heard an explosion. Our half exploded. then the shooting in the windows. ..."

When the house "explodes" with them inside, it's possible one of them would be killed. But allegedly, all three were able to walk out, only for one of them to then be shot. 

"...they took me aside, and the house caught fire. Oleg ran to put it out, but they wouldn't let him" 

HRW: "After an explosion and gunfire, the house caught fire. ... Four soldiers ordered them to come out of the house with their hands above their heads. The soldiers ordered Oleh, 40, and Volodymyr, a pensioner, to extinguish the fire. One soldier continued to question Iryna while three others took Oleh and Volodymyr to the northeast corner of the fenced-in yard. Volodymyr told Human Rights Watch that two soldiers then took Oleh out of the yard. Volodymyr said he pleaded for them to let Oleh come back to help put out the fire. One soldier went to look for Oleh outside the gate, but returned and said, “Oleh will not return.”"

Was he ordered to put out the fire, or prevented from doing so? Logically, it sounds like both. That is possible.

If they mean to say this grenade-triggered fire is the explanation for the house damage we see, that's a serious inconsistency. As it is, they don't specify if this is the case, or if the house was shelled later. No such thing is mentioned. But as I show below, the roof and much of the upper walls are blown off the house and a small barn, an area about 18m square, and the surrounding fences are heavily marked and punctured all across by explosive fragments. 

House Notes 

This house is labeled 342 Yablunska st. on Google Maps. 2015 street views seem to give the address as 342 Kirova street. Was it renamed? That plaque is on the gate to the left, which we see through above. In 2022, there's a sign saying Yablunska. Some photos taken by a Milwaukee Independent reporter show signs giving both names still exist. The possibly related business shack on the side still has the same sign in 2022 post-massacre videos. 

It seems the house was expanded after this view to include a taller portion to the south - 2 stories and an attic that would appear as a triangle above, if it existed. At right is a closer view from the south, looking up Vokzalna st.,\That's the house's final form in the drone video just minutes to hours before the described incident. 

And by the way, why was there no publicized footage from that incident?

The entire sizeable house is seen later fully blown up, along with an apparent pigpen or barn for smaller animals, where the blast(s) removed the roof and upper walls of an area about 18 by 20 meters. Below is based on a March 25 Azov Battalion drone view. 

That view was part of a batch of videos spanning March 23 to 30 released April 7 via Meduza: "These videos were given to Meduza by Belarusian neo-Nazi Serhii “Botsman” Korotkykh, whose combat group is fighting on the Ukrainian side. Korotkykh claims that his fellow combatants regularly filmed Russian positions in Bucha’s southern districts using their own drone." Later they would publish more footage covering March 12-13, via CNN (with the probably neo-Nazi source protected for his "safety"). As Bellingcat found (Twitter) the house  was pretty well destroyed by the time of a March 11 satellite view from Planet.com. Still we haven't seen any footage from the execution, grenade attack, or fire reported here March 5, and nothing between the 5th and the 12th.

The story includes a single grenade and general gunfire, except in one BBC telling where the house was "shelled" by the arriving tank. It would be sometime later, in most cases, when the house was also hit with a powerful artillery strike, maybe even a missile. Unless this exact damage is what the story means by a grenade blowing up and fire. I've seen no mention of it suffering later damage; they mention the grenade as if that's all we need to know. 

To me, it seems the house was impacted in the middle with a powerful shell/rocket/missile, or maybe 2+ of them - the way the north wall was obliterated and the peaked, south-facing wall and north-south walls were left more intact might suggest an incoming angle from the south-southeast. Other clues are less clear so far. It was probably just passive collapse when the peak of the south wall crumbled between 3/25 and 3/28 drone views.

The fence all along is pockmarked - on the right is the body of Irina Filkina and some denser marks seeming partly related to the tank shelling of the downed light pole, but surely including more fragments spreading out from the house. All of this could use more review to see which marks are made from this side vs. the other. 

The NE corner fence in more detail: some random punctures, probably explosive fragments, puncturing sharply from the inside, and some weaker bullets in less random patterns denting the fence from this side, exactly where an unclear banner had been. 

Was there something written across that part of the banner someone didn't like? The same kind of people who would swap in @vshop_18 instead? That obscure reference seemed linked to some high-paying, maybe criminal, "courier" service in Ukrainian cities, especially Odessa. These are the kind of background details we don't know, but that could really matter. Just across the street was spray-pained 1488, well-known "White Power" code referring to David Lane and Adolf Hitler.

Mystery Bodies

Another body (white armband) would appear later on the street in front of the Abarmov house, visible covered in white by March 12/13 (between March 5 and 12, during which there are no drone views available, and during which satellite views mostly see ~100% cloud cover or are unclear) - the same on March 21 (satellite) and March 23 (drone), then uncovered 3/25 and on April 2, then moved to the sidewalk - as seen below - next to an apparent shell impact at the stairs by the front gate. 

Stepping out of that gate later, Iryina said, “I looked to the left. Nothing. I look to the right. I see my husband on the ground,” she said. “I see lots of blood. I see part of his head is gone. Later I see other dead people, in different poses.” (NYT) She mentioned the other Iryna/irina next to her bicycle. And she says "bodies," presumably including this unidentified man. He's not visible in the 3/5 drone video, but probably wouldn't be from the angle. He might connect to the shelled or crushed car that was already there at the intersection as that video was recorded.

Another body would be seen just inside the gate, which Iryna definitely didn't mention. But she did say "The house was divided into three parts, my husband and I lived in one, my father lived in the second, and my cousin lived in the third." (Daily Banner) This cousin isn't mentioned in the narrative, as if he was away or had evacuated, meaning this was probably someone else. The story would say he died after Iryna and Volodomyr were forced to leave. That's likely enough. It seems to be a young male, in a dark jacket and pants, seen next to a fairly intact motorcycle with sidecar, cover in place and not shredded = likely brought here after that shelling, and before the man's death, in some later shooting or shelling. However, Oleg's motorcycle is mentioned in some accounts. 

Conclusion

The story lodged by Iryna Abramova and her father is fairly detailed and consistent, aside from perhaps the grenade vs. shelling issue. Their telling is convincing, if unusually eager and copious. But it's so full of propagandistic points against the Russians that it raises suspicions. 

A woman who "always thought [the Russians] were our bothers," and who lived at an important intersection for keeping the Russians contained, had her (likeminded?) husband killed and the house destroyed, compelling her and her (all-Russian?) father to change their mind and hate the Russians. And the Russians explicitly connected this to their Donbas-Russian-liberation and Ukro-Nazi-hunting themes, which the Ukrainian Nazis are keen to demonize. They had some help here.

Hromadske video: Iryna recalls a Soldier saying: "You are to blame for everything. People are dying in Donbas because of you. Where are the Nazis?" The excange continued: "I said there are no Nazis." "No, give me the address of the Nazis." "I said there are no Nazis! What kind of Nazis can there be?" She says somehow this interrogation went on for three hours as the house burned. They may have turned to other subjects eventually. 

To the New York Times, Abramova has the soldiers saying: "“We have come here to die, and our wives are waiting for us and you started this war. You elected this Nazi government.” (“They love the word Nazi, for some reason,” she added.)" She's learning that the Russians are the real Nazis and all that - Ukrainian nationalist propaganda, here written by the Russians themselves? 

"She thinks they [executed Oleg] to scare others in Bucha into submission." (NBC) They would be worried about very patriotic, anti-Russian fighters operating amidst the civilians. And the Russians thought they could deter them by executing ... a man who didn't resist, who had never served in the military, and was married to a half-Russian woman who used to like Russians. At least Iryna thought they would think this, because she now realizes what brutal Nazi morons they really are? 

It is possible, but I wonder if she's been put under compulsion to speak these lines. But better yet, Ukrainian forces could - potentially - have compelled her and her father with real-world theatrics. with a certain unit using stolen Russian uniforms and equipment, speaking Ukrainian propaganda out loud, in Russian, the whole way picking off their own enemies and potential traitors. If that happened, the victims might play along because they were genuinely fooled, or out of terror at the effort and what it means. 

This would require some 22+ Ukrainian-operated military vehicles in just this part of town, to the zero we know of in all Bucha at the time. The prosecutor investigating Oleg's death "said there were only Russian soldiers, not Ukrainian, in Bucha at the time." (NYT) We know Ukrainian forces were there on Feb. 27 to March 1, driving away seized Russian V tanks. There likely had been some on the 3rd, as part of the government show of force and control, raising the flag at city hall and declaring victory. These may have entirely left by the 5th, or maybe some stayed in a different capacity. We probably wouldn't know about any false-flag unit, even if we knew of their handiwork, all attributed to the Russians they seemed to be, even to the people on the ground.

I was initially quite suspicious Mr. Abramov was killed in a false flag murder. More reasons have emerged to think these were Russian forces after all, but deception still seems possible and worth keeping in mind. I have cast a wide net for this sort of thing, and I'm still catching and sorting. I don't yet have a great case to make yet, but eventually, I aim to have one assembled from the smaller pieces like the killing of Mr. Abramov.