< Bucha Massacre
July 31, 2022
(rough, incomplete)
note: original version posted 7/19 was a decent start considering it only cited 2 sources (and gave one wrongly) - seeing much more reportage and imagery, I've made major enough revisions it's basically a new article. I have the original version archived, can re-publish it if that seems helpful. If you wanted to understand this case and read my first piece, and you still want to get it, sorry for the first read - this is the one you should see.
Introduction
Some 14 of the 400 or so lives claimed in the "Bucha Massacre" were taken on or near Ivana-Franka street, an area I was slow to look at closely as I've focused on northeast Yablunska street, aka mortar alley. Ivana-Franka appears on the maps as basically the same street renamed east of the railroad tracks. But it does not connect with Yablunska except by a footpath across the raised tracks, and there's no nearby crossing either (I just clarified that, improving on previous maps). Ivana-Franka only runs some 600 meters or 4 irregular blocks before a name change. The killings we'll discuss were at its west end, circled in red.
Almost the only source I've found was a May article in the New York Times: "Such Bad Guys Will Come’: How One Russian Brigade Terrorized Bucha" By Carlotta Gall, Photographs by Daniel Berehulak. May 22, 2022 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/world/europe/ukraine-bucha-war-crimes-russia.html There were some photos and a brief mention of 2 killings in an earlier NYT article from 11 April: "Bucha’s month of terror: how Russian forces left behind a landscape of horrors," with an attached map.
The New York Times isn't the only source to report on this story, like only lawerly people who work in New York can understand it. Luke Mogelson at the New Yorker also wrote about it: How Ukrainians Saved Their Capital, May 2, 2022. No one else I could easily find has, except by citing these 2 reports, including some translations back to Ukrainian.
Sources I found later with a bit less ease: Le Monde English (April 10), Der Spiegel English (April 8), and in Ukrainian NV.UA (April 6), Fakty (April 11), Delo (May 9), and some local accounts on video from Aliveua, June 7. In Japanese, a Twitter thread with photos from Kunisue Norito.
As told, the Russians there "tortured" innocent locals including women, deliberately slicing entire limbs from their bodies, maybe while alive, then burning their bodies and stray parts all heaped up horrifically at an open crossroads ... to "cover their tracks."
“From this house to the end, no one is left alive,” Olga Havryliuk, 65, told Gall. “Eleven people were killed here." The article claims a death toll of 12, and that plus another article's map and claims adds up to at least 14 killings on and near Ivana-Franka street. This is not a definitive total, but quite likely all there was, aside from any Russian or Ukrainian soldiers killed. In roughly chronological order:
1 Volodymyr Cherednychenko
2 Roman Havryliuk
3 Serhiy Dukhli
4 unidentified man
5 Viktor Pavlenko
6 Yuri Pavlenko
7 Volodymyr Shypilo
8 Tetiana Shypilo
9 Andriy Shypilo
10 Oleh Yarmolenko
11 Lidiya Sydorenko
12 Serhiy Sydorenko
13 Oleh Diyun
14 unidentified young man
We'll consider these below in a few sections. Here's a reference map. Note several houses numbered 1 - each is color-coded for the street it refers to.
Killings were said to run for "18 days" after the 12th or 13th, so to the end of March, when Russian forces voluntarily left the city. Spiegel heard "on the morning of April 1, they were gone" Ourdan writes of "a month of occupation that turned into a living nightmare" But as I'll explain, they may have been in charge only about ten days, and either way the Ukrainian offensive to oust them likely killed half of these people, including as it does "all of the inhabitants of six houses where the soldiers set up camp."
Three of those six houses may be empty, but 3 with people killed correlate with three described posts, 2 of which apparently suffered shelling, presumably by Ukrainian forces. One of those had 4 people living there who wound up dead, quite possibly from shelling. Then someone - possibly Ukrainian - tried to hide these details by burning the bodies.
Proceeding now in great detail...
An Informant: Volodymyr Cherednychenko
Volodymyr Cherednychenko, 27, was an electrician who lived with his mother and aunt at #10 Ivana-Franka street. His father was Ukrainian military and "died three years ago after returning from the Donbas front. His mother Nadezhda gave Volodomyr a temporary burial, but had plans to re-bury him next to his father. (Ourdan, Le Monde)
Gall, NYT: "Nadezhda Cherednychenko, 50, pleaded with the soldiers to let her son go. He was being held in the yard of a house and his arm had been injured when she last saw him. She found him dead in the cellar of the same house three weeks later, after the Russians withdrew." A photo shows "the cellar where Volodymyr Cherednychenko, who was detained for three weeks by Russian troops, was found shot through the ear." No body is there. I don't think his body was ever photographed before it was removed and buried.
Mogelson: his mother Nadejda Cherednichenko told Iryna Havryliuk that her son Volodymyr "had been detained in early March." It was "three weeks" later when she asked "two Russian soldiers patrolling outside of her house" about her son's fate, and was told “You don’t have a son anymore.” Later on, "A neighbor had taken Cherednichenko to a basement where Volodymyr had been shot through the ear. All five fingers on his left hand had been wrenched backward."
Victoria Yasnopolska, Fakty, April 11: "Natalia Alexandrova was at home when three Russian soldiers knocked on her gate. It was
March 4. Together with her 26-year-old nephew Vladimir Cherednichenko and his mother Nadizda, she lived in the house number 10 on Ivan Franko Street in Bucha. This was enough to take the unarmed frightened guy to the neighboring house Number 6, painted yellow. While he was led, Natalia heard her nephew crying and cradling her hand, which, most likely, the Rashists managed to cripple."
"Later, the soldiers pushed Vladimir into an armored personnel carrier, which was parked in an apple orchard. His mother brought him a warm coat and shoes. She was told that they would take her son to the city for further questioning and return them in three days." Note that would be on the 7th. "But there was no news for three weeks. One of the Russians, who appeared to be 18 years old, told Natalia that her nephew had been taken to an inactive zone in Belarus." But eventually Vladimir's body was "found in a damp garden basement on a nearby street, at the foot of a brick staircase."
As Fakty tells it, "after their defeat" - or just before their withdrawal at the end of March - is when "the inhumans brought the boy to his knees and shot him in the head through the ear. Vladimir was kept all this time, brutally tortured, in the basement, as evidenced by a bloodied mattress."
Le Monde's Ourdan, in contrast, would write:
"Of all the residents who were killed or disappeared, only the case of Volodymyr Cherenichenko leaves no doubts as to the killers' motives, even though the execution of a prisoner of war is a crime. His mother, Nadizda Cherenichenko, tells it straight: "Volodymyr was informing territorial defense volunteers [of the Ukrainian army] about the situation in Bucha and the arrival of the Russians. When they searched the house, they found messages on his phone."
Not that it justifies the abuse, but this largely-ignored detail does give some reason to kill well short of satanic genocide.
Volodymyr was first interrogated at home, in front of his mother. He was tortured. One of his hands and his fingers were crushed. He was then taken to an army headquarters for another interrogation, and then brought home in the evening. He was locked in the cellar of his house. He was told that he would be held there for two weeks. On March 8, the next morning, he was executed."
They would hold him 2 weeks, most likely, for more questioning, but apparently they just changed their minds. Or did someone else manage to execute him to prevent further questioning? But then, if someone was around, informed and capable enough to off a witness, couldn't they just free him instead? And if they were so informed, why did they even need his tips in the first place?
Assuming it was his captors ... Some inconsistencies enter here. His mother and aunt could hardly miss Volodomyr's imprisonment and killing right in the basement of their home, even if the Russsians put their own new lock on it. They could hardly be left asking about his fate, hearing he was taken to Belarus. In fact, as Ourdan heard, "Volodymyr's body remained in the cellar for three weeks. Nadzida Cherenichencko buried her son at the bottom of her garden the day after the Russians left, with the help of her neighbor Natalya." This "neighbor" and "friend" is probably "Aunt" Natalya in other versions.
Perhaps both differences stem from Ourdan meeting Cherenichenko at the killing site, where she buried Volodomyr's body in someone else's garden, and thought it was their home (and maybe just Natalia said she lived elsewhere, so she seemed to be a neighbor). There's a photo of Nadizda by her son's grave; the surroundings are too vague to place, but it's likely not behind their #10.
But then how is the execution date known? And why does it conflict with the other report? By this, Volodomyr was arrested on the 7th of March, when he was supposed to be returned in the other version - three days after his arrest on the 4th. That 3-day span might explain the difference somehow. In that case, we may have no serious discrepancies. Otherwise, there are some date issues.
A 14th Victim
A late addition: some details I had previously attached to Cherednichenko's case, but that seem separate, belonging to another young man shot in the head in another basement. Mogelson wrote that during his visit on April 6: "A Ukrainian soldier approached me to say that he’d found another victim. I followed him into the basement of a yellow house" - like no. 6 was - "where a rail-thin teen-ager was crumpled on the floor. Blood had leaked from his mouth and nose. The soldier crouched and felt under his skull. “He was shot in the back of the head,” he said. That sounded like it might be Mr. Cherednichenko, but he was reportedly buried some 5 days earlier. This may be a 14th victim.
Gall, NYT, May: "Another man" listed just after Cherednichenko, almost seeming to refer to him, was "caught by the Russian soldiers as he ran along the train track and taken into a cellar of a house at the end of the street," and he "was also found shot dead." The first article in April didn't mention this, but the map points to "boy found in basement" along the tracks south of Ivana-Franka, next to "two brothers in brush". Sounds like a "man" that could be called a "boy" or "a rail-thin teen-ager"?
Ourdan heard the Pavlenko brothers were found last, on April 7, where "a young man" had already been found "in the basement of the neighboring house, killed by a bullet to the head." He covers Volodomyr separately, and notes his earlier burial. The only house near the NYT pin is odd; both Google Maps and Yandex Maps fail to give a number for the house, which is the only one facing onto a street or alley with no given name. It was painted white, not yellow, back in 2015. But otherwise, it sounds like this 14th victim was found there, and it's not clear what basement Cherednichenko was killed in - likely the same #6 he was interrogated at. In both cases, we have no images of the body. That too helped me to get them confused. In this case, I think even the locale has gone unseen.
The 64th Brigade Arrives, Not Sure When
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5rflEXLx6I
Local women say of the Russians "30 of them were here. The young arrived first. They did not touch. They came to that street, to the promenade (looks south to Ivana-Franka). When the special forces came, they were already roister (based) here." All agree they were told not to set foot outside their homes or they would be beaten or killed. None of them mentions witnessing any killings, but they survived largely by not witnessing much.
In Carlotta Gall's New York Times piece "Such bad guys will come," the title refers to Russia's 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade, "a particularly fearsome unit of Moscow’s invading army." Gall heard about them mainly from Col. Mykola Krasny, the head of public affairs of Ukrainian military intelligence, but also from locals she was directed to. As related in the May article, the 64th is mainly recruited from disadvantaged minorities, with "aggressive habits" and "no discipline." The 64th has fought in Chechnya, and is notable for its "lack of morality." Its fighters are "rough and uncouth" and from the Taiga (Siberia); they usually speak only to bears and still find asphalt startling. They're known for "beatings of soldiers and for thieving" but with a main purpose of being "a fearsome army unit that could instill control." This is helpful to understanding the bizarre allegations at the heart of this article.
The 64th Brigade was said to arrive in Bucha on March 12 and/or 13, bringing "a new level of death and terror to the city," They shot dogs, plucked chickens, cooked meat too close to human bodies, and later burned human bodies. To their credit, no one has claimed the 64th Brigade ate the cooked human bodies.
Asian features widely noted - Ourdan: All of them agree on one point: the soldiers posted around Ivana-Franka were "Buryats," named after a Mongolian community in the Russian Far East. Some of them insist on specifying that they were"Asians," and show with their index fingers that they had slanting eyes. The district's inhabitants are, however, unable to describe any military insignia or other distinctive signs."
Ukrainian prosecutors
would announce how 3 Russian soldiers - Amangelde Bekentayev, Erbol Abilkhairov, and Zafar Sobyrov of the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade were involved in crimes on Ivana-Franka street. "It was established that
approximately on March 12 (the exact time of the investigation is not yet known), these three in a state of alcoholic intoxication, threatening with weapons, conducted an illegal search at the place of residence of the citizen Grigory Ivanovich Kasyan in the house Number 5 on Ivan Franko Street in Bucha."
"After that, all three moved to the house 1-A on the street Maxim Ridzanich. There they killed two inhabitants – Sergei Dukhliy and Roman Gavrilyuk. Dukhli was killed by a gunshot wound to the head, and Gavriluk was shot in the head and neck." This will be "approximately on March 12," a bit later in the day. As related below, they were said to be killed "on March 12 or 13," as Roman's mother Olha Havryliuk recalls. That was "when the 64th Brigade first arrived," Gall notes. "Approximately on March 12" vs. the 12th or 13th - It seems like a clue how everyone is vague about the date; it's as if they don't all know the date, and all just repeat one indecisive conclusion. And that in turn might be a clue, though it's not clear what it would mean.
Le Monde - refers to these arriving mid-month who "set up a base in an empty house, in the alley between Staroyablonska and Novoyablonska, near the beginning of Ivana-Franka Street." Following on that, "they positioned a tank and a checkpoint in front of Irina and Serhiy's house, at the corner of Maksima-Rydzanycha Street," - as told, that was done on the 12th or 13th - "then another tank next to Yuri's house" (perhaps meaning Viktor's house). This is when, Ourdan writes, "The gates of hell opened on Ivana-Franka Street."
3 Dead at Havryliuk House
Gall, NYT: Roman Havryliuk (43), a welder, and Serhiy Dukhli (46), a security guard, "sent the rest of their family out of Bucha as the violence intensified, but both insisted on staying behind. They were found dead in their yard. An unknown man also lay dead nearby, and the family’s two dogs were riddled with bullets." They were killed "on March 12 or 13," mother Olha Havryliuk recalls. That was "when the 64th Brigade first arrived," Gall notes. "The death certificates said that they had been shot in the head."
Survivors Describe the Russian Atrocities in Bucha
Russian soldiers shot and killed hundreds of civilians in the town of Bucha, just north of Kyiv. DER SPIEGEL went there to talk with survivors about their shocking experiences under the occupiers.
Sergei was Irina’s husband. Roman her brother, and "she doesn’t know who the third man is." .
"The last time Irina saw [Sergei] was on March 5. The war had been underway for just over a week by then. "When the warplanes flew overhead, the whole house shook," she says. She left the city that day,
but Sergei stayed behind. He didn’t want to abandon the animals they had taken in: two dogs and six cats. Irina fled across the Irpin River and onward to western Ukraine. Ten days later, she received a final call from her brother: "Don’t worry," he told her.
3/5 +10 days = 3/15, 2 to 3 days after they were reportedly killed. But she might have meant "about ten days later."
One of these bodies always looked like a woman to me, due to the coat, fur-lined with decorative spangles, and buttons on the left, plus somewhat girly boots, plus the t-shirt over his face looking like a shawl. But all are said to be men.
Mogelson thought his jacket was just "speckled with unmelted snow," and some photos show the jacket was covered with new snow at some point, hiding such clues. Ok. "Ms." Iryna Havryliuk showed up to say this one, head covered with a t-shirt, was her husband "Sergey, a forty-seven-year-old private security guard" - and the one by the fence was her brother Roman Havryliuk. (the one face-down is unidentified). Mogelson followed Iryna inside: "Empty shoeboxes were heaped in a pile. “They stole my shoes,” Havryliuk said. Her lingerie, perfume, and jewelry were also missing." Maybe a coat and boots were missing too, but she doesn't make an issue of that.
“My uncle stayed for the dog, and my father stayed for the house,” Havryliuk’s son, Nazar, said." (Gall 2) Couldn't one of them watch the house and the dog? Was that really a two-man operation? Maybe with a third man brought in? And maybe with disguises involved? (Could the lingerie really help with that anyway?) It seems quite likely they stayed to resist from inside, were found out and executed, or even killed in defense. Otherwise, there might have been less reason, but they do seem shot: one has a major head wound, and the others are described that way (Dukhli's wound is said to have taken out an eye). The walls seem to bear no sign of shelling or indiscriminate shooting. But then they weren't probably shot right here, but rather nearby, and moved here after the fact, possibly at different times.
Iryna told Der Spiegel "She doesn’t know why Sergei and Roman were killed. Neighbors told her that the third man in her yard had been shot by the Russians because he had ventured out onto the street while searching for better mobile phone reception. The occupiers were wary of men speaking on the phone, fearful that they could be passing along coordinates for an artillery attack." Two things they told everyone not to do - have or use a phone, and go outside. A man walking right out there going "can you hear me now?" might get shot. I wouldn't approve, but it sounds plausible enough. But then if he were involved in some resistance operation, it would likely be denied with a vague story like this.
After killing the men there, the 64th Brigade then commandeered the house. Gall write "the Russian soldiers smashed the Havryliuks’ fence, parked their armored vehicle in the garden, and moved into the house." Mogelson describes it: "Outside a small two-story home, Russian soldiers had constructed a makeshift checkpoint from pallets, cinder blocks, and empty ammunition boxes. In the back yard, three more men had been executed." some remnants, perhaps, in photos - these also show - smashed fences and a shed - possibly all by tanks making room, maybe from some shelling of those tanks (but nothing major if so).
Geolocation: This was a bit tricky - Here's a photo of the widowed Ms. Havryluk found at
Radio Svoboda Colored lines mark features that allowed a geolocation to the north-south Ridzanicha Maxima street, as seen in 2015, destroyed fences in red.
She just saw her dead husband and brother behind one of these houses... to the left or right was unclear. The NYT map seemed to indicate the one to the right, #2 Ridzanicha Maxima st. and a curve in the backyard seemed to match the curve of stones seen near the dead men. However some features matched photo to photo correlate with a 2015 Google Maps street view to clarify the brick wall with the ladder is the north side of 1 RM st., and the yard with bodies is between that and a blue-painted outbuilding of 1A to the north - not what I'd call the backyard of 1A.
AliveUA video shows #2 across the alley - fences smashed down for the whole span in front of the house - apparent tank tracks in the yard - so the checkpoint included both yards at 1 and 2 plus the street.
And finally (?)
a Kunisue Norito photo shows the side of #2 along Ivana-Franka, where there's also a gate that seems blown out across the driveway, while the whole fence leans outward - an explosion inside the fence? Some stacked shelves past that might be some lame checkpoint? A car that seems run over by a tank at some point - some kind of shelling damage to outside of the upper fence, probably from the left.
4 Bodies Along the Tracks
Gall, New York Times, May: "By the time the troops pulled out at the end of March, two brothers, Yuriy and Viktor Pavlenko, who lived at the end of the street, lay dead in a ditch by the railway line." The April report's map shows "two brothers in brush" along the tracks a bit south of Ivana-Franka.
A video of April 7 shows a dog has just found one of the bodies, covered in deep brush, down in the concrete gutter.
Mogelson, The New Yorker: "The brothers, Yuri and Victor, had been in their sixties and had lived in adjacent houses. Locals had referred to them as Uncle Yuri and Uncle Victor. While Bucha was occupied, Yuri had worn a white cloth around his sleeve, to signal neutrality, and baked bread for hungry neighbors. Both men had been shot in the head. Empty beer bottles lay in the grass." Ourdan, Le Monde: "On their family plot, Viktor had built a brick house and Yuri a wooden house." These are 1 and 1B on Ridzanycha Maxima Lane. In a 2015 Google Maps street view, an old street name appears on 1: Петровского = Petrovskogo. Since re-named, apparently, for Maksym Rydzanych, a Ukrainian soldier killed fighting "Russian invaders" (his own countrymen, probably) near Donetsk, March 20, 2015. The name is feminized, I guess, because it's a street.
Ourdan: "At the end of the battle, Viktor's house was ravaged and burned when Ukrainian artillery finally hit the tank stationed there and when an ammunition dump exploded." When that happened is not specified, except that it sounds like it took longer than it should have ("finally"), and this shelling isn't what killed them; "the two brothers had already been executed, "killed at the same time," according to their neighbor Gregoriy, earlier in the war." This might be Gregory Kasyan, whose home was searched - a likely Ukrainian defense insider. The date isn't specified, even approximately - after the 4th? After the 12th?
A photo with Le Monde's report shows their bodies dragged out of the gutter and up the slope by the tracks. One wears a heavy blue coat, while the other lacks such a coat, and wears tattered clothing. A discarded heavy blue coat is seen right in front of the gate of Viktor's destroyed house in April, perhaps with some tears in it (white stuffing visible?). That could all be a coincidence, or maybe his death was not so separate from the shelling of his home. 2-3 weeks or more is a long time to expect a coat to lay right there, so most likely it was just nearby, and wound up right here eventually.
There is some green abdominal discoloration visible under the mud = dead probably at least 2 weeks, probably 3+. The last bodies found on Thursday, April 7, were those of Viktor and Yuri Pavlenko. The two men were lying in a pipe below the railroad tracks, covered with dirt and branches. = possibly killed as late as the 24th, probably closer to the 17th or even earlier, but but long enough after that "while Bucha was occupied" Yuri had time to become known for wearing a white armband, as he lived in his house behind the Russian checkpoint. But the Russians shot him anyway, and his brother too. No one seems to know why, and no one says just when.
As noted above, an unidentified young man was found executed in a basement close to the brothers. Again, there seem to be no images of that body or scene.
And there was one other body found by the tracks a little north of them all. NYT 4/11 an unidentified man included in a map, next to the tracks north of Ivana-Franka. Photos show a body in what seems like this spot, comparing well to
a 2015 street view (optional, possibly offensive; turn right and look down at the concrete gutter). Mogelson for the New Yorker describes this body pretty well in his article. noting the massive blood loss “from the bullet hole in his temple." Another photo (
viewable here) shows the body rolled over, with another hole in his right hand - no sign of torso injuries or fragmentation. - likely shot in the head, through his hand. Head injuries aren't shown clearly, but the blood appears pretty red. The hand injury is quite red, as if fresh. No sign of decay or frost-blackened fingers. I'd say he's been dead for less and warmer days than the early executions - sometime around the 20th, perhaps.
Ourdan alone reports a name for this victim: "Oleg Diyun, whose body lay in the grass of the pathway bordering the railroad. He was identified by police because he still had his identification papers and a phone, but he is not known to be a resident of the neighborhood. "His face is familiar, but he didn't live on that street," Gregoriy said. It is assumed that the man was visiting relatives or friends when the war caught up with him."
Six They Tried to Hide
Gall: "Neighbors who lived next door to the Havryliuks just disappeared. Volodymyr and Tetiana Shypilo, a teacher, and their son Andriy, 39, lived in one part of the house, and Oleh Yarmolenko, 47, lived alone in the other side. “They were all our relatives,” Ms. Havryliuk said."
Rémy Ourdan, Le Monde on the Shipilo family's ordeal: "Tatiana, the mother, was forced to cook for weeks for the Russian soldiers who had taken up residence in the annex of the house. Her husband, Volodymyr, her son, Andriy, and her brother-in-law, Oleg, helped her as best they could to satisfy the occupiers' needs." Nonetheless, "the Shipilo family disappeared. ... No one knows what happened to them. They were no longer at home the morning the Russian army left. Their friends have been looking for their bodies in the entire neighborhood."
No one saw them killed or moved, no clear word on when they were last seen - they just vanished, and no one even knows when. the Russians left on their own, presumably around the 30th, and suddenly the people were gone - everyone keeps agreeing on that.
Carlotta Gall's report in May, and no others I've seen before or since mention two others who ... have a bit more specifics but wound up sharing the Shypilos' fate:
"Down a side alley lived Lidiya Sydorenko, 62, and her husband Serhiy, 65. Their daughter, Tetiana Naumova, said that she spoke to them by telephone midmorning on March 22. “Mother was crying the whole time,” Ms. Naumova said. “She was usually an optimist, but I think she had a bad feeling.”
"Minutes later," Gall heard, "Russian soldiers came in and demanded to search their garage." How Naumova could know what happened after the call must be from external witnesses, probably the neighbor who says Russians chased her off by "shooting at the ground by her feet." As Naumova heard it, the Russians escalated things and “by lunchtime" they had killed both her parents.
Did the Russians pick up the signal of a call placed? If so, they could be expected to go and check, putting themselves near the signal. Can Ukraine pick up on the same signal and assume Russians will be there soon, and then launch a shell? I ask because I really don't know if that's possible.
When she returned in April, Naumova says she found "her father’s hat with bullet holes in it, three pools of blood and a piece of her mother’s scalp and hair." Buttlet holes and explosive fragment marks can be hard to tell apart. The physical state of the house is a matter of interest, but it isn't shown or even described, except that it's intact enough to have things found inside it. We don't even have a clear location for this house (so it's not labeled on my map)
"There was also no sign of the Shypilos or of Mr. Yarmolenko, except trails of blood where bodies had been dragged along the floor of their house." (Gall)
All six missing people were found together, suggesting all six may have been killed around the 22nd, some ten days after the 64th brigade arrived. Were they all killed over that one phone call?
Dumped and Burned
Perhaps the most shocking single image out of the Bucha massacre is one of six bodies piled next to rubbish and badly burned. This was in a small lot just off Ivana-Franka's northeast end, about 600 meters from the homes and checkpoints described above. It's just provocative, and not at all hidden. Carlotta Gall: "Eventually, French forensic investigators solved the mystery" of the missing people when they examined these charred remains "and confirmed that they were the missing civilians: the Sydorenkos, the three Shypilos and Mr. Yarmolenko."
Several bore bullet wounds but three of them had had limbs severed, including Ms. Naumova’s mother, the investigators told the families. Her father had multiple gunshot wounds to the head and chest, her mother had had an arm and a leg cut off, she said."
“They tortured them,” Ms. Havryliuk said, “and burned them to cover their tracks.”
The article closes on that incendiary note. I suspect this was never proven, but was handed to the family as fact, by Ukrainian officials, as part of their propaganda war with Russia.
Here's a widely-seen photo of the charred bodies, blurred for the moment, and the background sharpened, Ivana-Franka street labeled. They are in pieces not well explained by simple gunshot execution, as I'll explain in more detail below, but it's not clear at all these people were "tortured" or even deliberately mutilated post-mortem.
Gall's April 11 NYT article reported a different version. This had mentioned the Havryliuks, and other area killings were mapped, but this didn't know about the missing six, as it reported six unidentified bodies nearby: "In a clearing on one street, the police later found five members of a family, including two women and a child, their bodies dumped and burned." The map says it was a family of 4 among 6 bodies found at the correctly pinned spot: 50.5477388,30.2489483. It's not plainly visible from the street, but not exactly hidden either. DW video from the scene with press in attendance as chief body collector Sergei Matyuk (colorful jacket) sets to work.
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Stashevskyi and Anna, Associated Press, April 05: "Andrii Nebytov, head of police in the Kyiv region, noted one of the charred bodies
was a child. ... The small blackened foot of a child could be seen in the tangle of charred bodies..." No small foot is clearly visible in that mess. I thought I saw a whole leg, skeletonized, but it was an adult arm.
NV.UA, April 6: The bodies were collected in a van marked 200 after being examined by law enforcement officers. ""Experts cannot establish who these people were yet: only burned bones remain," but it seemed "the dead were two men and four women.
Perhaps one of the bodies belongs to the child."" even though they were all men and women? "The police believe that people were killed somewhere nearby, and then the occupiers tried to get rid of the bodies, dousing them with an incendiary mixture and setting them on fire."
Ourdan, Le Monde, April 10 ...
"The most spectacular massacre took place in the eastern part of the street, near the military base.
In a vacant lot at the end of the alley where the house serving as the Russian unit's headquarters is located, the neighbors found the bodies of seven people, burned together after being executed. There were no witnesses. The inhabitants had not been allowed to use the alley, now littered with liquor bottles. The bodies are currently being identified."
He heard that seven people were killed, maybe confusing an unidentified man he doesn't mention at the Havryliuk's house, lumped in so all 7 unidentified were burned here. It sounds like they were killed where they were burned, which was near an otherwise unmentioned Russian command post. None is specified as a child.
Mogelson wrote in early May:
Down the road from Havryliuk’s place, charred corpses lay beside a garbage pile. Locals said that Russians in a tank had dumped them and lit them on fire. (Later, police would tape off the scene and place yellow markers identifying six victims.) One appeared to be a woman, another a child—though they were so severely mutilated that it was hard to say for sure. Orphaned cats and dogs sniffed around the burned and severed legs and torsos.
"Russians in a tank" dumped and burned the bodies. Did someone actually witness something, or is this just something they deduced, or felt like they should say. "In a tank" isn't the best way to move 6 partly fragmented bodies, though it should be possible. Some transports carry 8 intact soldiers besides a 3-man crew. Still, a pickup truck makes more sense.
Carlotta Gall's report in May had the test results. Others didn't, but they might hear /valid suspicion 4 or 5 of them were related. One had a plainly visible face, and they weren't so far from homes they were missing from. Initially it was 4-5 relatives among 6 bodies including a child, later it would be 4 people with 2 family names related to the Havryluks plus 2 neighbors, including two women and no children. One couple died with their son, but he was aged 39. Having a small child involved added emotional power to the story. That might be the only reason it was ever claimed.
Speaking of emotional power ... Spiegel: local girl "Varya," 13, related how she and her mother "Yevgeniya" are among the few locals who interacted with the Russian soldiers almost throughout the occupation ... "We were constantly trying to calm them down. Sometimes, they wanted to light the entire neighborhood on fire. Sometimes, they wanted to throw a grenade into a house." says Varya (not her real name) - says she was repeatedly threatened with death, and a tall soldier raped her at least once as her mother was made to watch. They also say they caught this boastful admission that the Russian troops had burned some missing neighbors:
Evening after evening, Yevgeniy and Varya listened to the brutal jokes told by the drunken soldiers. They didn’t want to say what units they belonged to, nor did they say where they had taken the neighbors. "They said: 'You’ll find them. We burned some of them,'" Yevgeniya recalls.
It's not clear why the Russians never burned their other victims when they had weeks to do so. Just these six, at least two of whom died March 22, received this treatment. There might be a few reasons for this distinction, like females being included. And it might be a difference in how they were killed and by whom.
Shelling Victims?
I
wrote about these charred bodies before (May 15) ... My starting thoughts are worth just repeating:
Dymtro Andriv, a Ukrainian National Police spokesperson, saying of these bodies:
"We know they were killed by gunfire, because there are many bullet wounds. Then somebody tried to hide this crime by burning the bodies." (NPR)
Because of what Andriv said, we should wonder if maybe they didn't die from shooting. They in fact appear more torn up, some in pieces or missing pieces, as if by a moderate explosion - if so, they may be partly burned in that blast, and were presumably peppered with bullet-like shrapnel ("many bullet wounds").
Another example of overdone denial:
Anatoly Nebitov, head of the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Kiev region, explained: these people have no signs of death from explosive devices or from a missile and bomb attack. But one woman definitely has a gunshot wound." (
NV.UA, April 6) One was definitely shot, so they all must have been shot, like up-close. And, therefore, anything else that looks like possible shelling must be up-close stabbing, dismemberment and such - probably while alive, so it's best called torture.
At first, I surmised this family of 4 had been inside a vehicle when it was shelled, and they were burned to hide THOSE clues, along with 2 other bodies someone had the same problem with. It bears again showing these images in small size, with bigger views possible for anyone who needs to see these details. Here I've added numbers for reference, following the numbers investigators gave the bodies at the scene. There are some other views around, perhaps with better resolution, but the 2 views I have allow these observations on the ways these poor souls were mangled.
1) probable adult: upper head missing, abdomen open, apparently missing most organs before burning, some probably after (hungry dogs or wild animals) - arms partly missing, status from exposed spinal cord down unclear
2) adult: left leg missing at the hip, right leg unclear - probably includes some work by hungry dogs - left arm intact, right unclear - splits to and missing pieces of scalp,
3) intact head, left hand - right hand missing, unclear from the chest down
4) adult female? mostly intact, no massive injuries to backside, badly charred - sliced skin under the chin? right elbow injury?
5) probable adult: badly charred, missing right arm and most of both legs?
6) adult male, perhaps older age - no obvious injuries at all to the front side, except detached left foot - un-burned face = fairly identifiable = tracks not covered so well.
In between the bodies: an apparently stray leg, maybe another limb, some lumps of tissue. It's not clear on review if a child was ever visually suggested. (I thought so at one point)
Earlier I said "The burning here seems recent, not exposed to much rain or weathering - probably in April, maybe at the end of March." Amending that: I can't really say. March 23 or so sounds plausible. Or even earlier. I'm not sure how to read weathering of burned skin or clothing. Signs of decay are totally absent, but that's likely enough - especially after burning - for any relevant time frame,
That burning has solidified some rigor mortis positions, which suggests they were burned while somewhat stiff, about a day to maybe 2 days after death. Body 6 is clear with bent knees, forearms abnormally up - I've seen this before with bodies carried by the knees and elbows, after that pose has faded for a few hours. That's when the flesh was stiffened with fire so he stayed that way to April 4. Bodies 3 and 5 might show the same, and the others are unclear on the point. It doesn't prove much - the story includes bodies carried here. But we can say it wasn't done right away, nor was it several days later. If they were killed mid-day March 22, the burning was probably late on the 23rd, give or take half a day.
Anyway, I was thinking shelled vehicles, partly from the intensity of damage. Now we hear blood was found in their homes. But as I show next, one or both of these homes DID suffer some kind of shelling. And while we can't as clearly link that to the deaths, it is quite possible, and if so, we can be pretty sure who fired the shells around homes where Russian forces were allegedly based.
A Shell-Shocked Front Line
Luke Mogelson,
for The New Yorker, offers a description of this little-seen part of Bucha that touches on some relevant context:
Ivana-Franka Street was a quaint dirt lane on the eastern edge of Bucha, ... During the monthlong Russian occupation, the street, which was close to various Ukrainian-held neighborhoods, had become a front line, and now burnt-out Russian tanks and trucks listed among the remains of splintered houses and overturned or pancaked vehicles. The few people who were around wandered amid the debris with dazed expressions, resembling the survivors of a natural catastrophe.
"Front line" might refer to Bucha in general, relatively close to government-held neighborhoods in Irpin. But it sounds like a front line inside Bucha, though no other sources mention such a thing. Either way, it's a front line, and Russian forces get shelled - up-close or from a distance. "Burnt-out Russian tanks and trucks listed among the remains of splintered houses and overturned or pancaked vehicles," and might even relate to them, like ... sharing a common cause? And people who live in "houses where the soldiers set up camp." and that suffered attacks, wind up dead ... likely from shelling.
When were the checkpoints shelled?
Christian Esch und Thore Schröder, Der Spiegel, April, citing 13-year-old Varya:
"On or around March 20, as the fighting was getting closer to Bucha and an armored vehicle was hit, the violence on Ivan Franko Street increased." This suggests Ukrainian forces in general were still outside Bucha, but advancing towards it, perhaps with intent to break in. There could be advance elements already there. The Sydorenkos were reportedly killed on the 22nd, and more Ukrainian shelling might have done it.
Der Spiegel: "The soldiers started looking for someone to hold responsible and threatened Yevgeniya’s daughter. "They came into the yard," Varya says. "'Tell us everything! We know that you know something!' They started firing over my head and over my shoulder." Hmmm.
Der Spiegel: "Then, on the morning of April 1, they were gone." The local attacks didn't chase them out - they only left when Russian forces at large did - or about a day after most of them did on the 30th. Just one AFV is mentioned as "hit" - Mogelson cites plural - so far I've seen zero in images - but then I saw some. We'll come back to it below. First ...
There was some damage to the homes next to their posts, where people lived... With the May NYT article is a Daniel Berehulak photograph captioned: "The property of the Shypilo family in Bucha where six people are thought to have been tortured and killed at one end of Ivana Franka Street." Or anyway 4 of the 6 were likely killed here, while the other 2 left blood at another house we haven't seen, and probably not at both houses.
Geolocation to Google Maps street view of the middle "1 Ivana-Franka street" (see maps)
Those Russians bring devastation wherever they go, it seems, and they die violently quite a bit. But they usually have some help in that, and it often goes unmentioned. This former Russian armor position has clearly suffered some enemy shelling. Previous damage includes a fenced yard that was smashed open, maybe not this totally, into a crude parking lot. A car marked V, and maybe put there after the Russians left - maybe with a few tanks closer to and on the street. The residents were apparently still living inside the house until they were killed there - and it's uncertain just when and how that happened.
More recently, some trees have been broken, splintered, sliced and partly de-limbed - a bit like the house's residents would be. The house is not massively damaged, apparently not directly hit, and it shows no sign of serious fire. But it has lost its windows and some roofing. The big tree downed on the left was likely hit from the right, up the street to the east. Closer views to show fragmentation marks would help say, but from the intact walls, I wouldn't expect limbs torn off inside, even if folks were moving around on the ground floor (and they would likely stay in a basement or shelter at most times). But maybe if someone had been outside, or just inside the door, they might have suffered serious damage.
A Kunisue Norito
photo is the best at showing some marks on the house, relatively few on the garage, but a busted ammunition box - luggage searched - gate sections, maybe run over - the red van - license plate removed here, was seen in earlier photos (Le Monde).
Another Norito photo shows another car, seeming run over by a tank, not shelled. But note the fence closest to the house was perforated by burning objects and partly burned away.
The shelled car ... one car has been burned out, after suffering some damage to the front end, driver's side, peeling back and tearing sections of metal, another piece tearing into the door, and igniting the engine.
As seen there, A stray rabbit had its enclosure broken, seemingly suffered a shoulder injury, but hops around fine (
Kunisue Norito video)
This car was parked near #1, but also fairly near the next house over, 1 Ridzanycha Maxima Ln., where a checkpoint was set up at Viktor's brick house ... supposedly no locals were living there after Viktor was killed, or when, "at the end of the battle, Viktor's house was ravaged and burned when Ukrainian artillery finally hit the tank stationed there and when an ammunition dump exploded." When isn't specified, except that it sounds like it took longer than it should have. The roof and parts of the south wall are destroyed, blown out into the yard - there was a severe but maybe quick fire inside. The car was a ways down the street - maybe hit by cannon fire from a tank parked out front, or perhaps damaged when an attack on such a tank "finally" arrived.
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The photo above hid a lot. Another great Norito
photo shows the damage from the other side, near that shelled car. The stone fence is intact except part of the 5th pane, and the fence from there is gone. A good portion of some destroyed AFV lies against the charred skeleton of #1, looking bigger than you'd think - clear view to 1B, and the corner of 1A on the right side. An outbuilding just to its west seems to be just off-frame, likely intact but damaged. The car in question is just a bit further off-frame, so this attack is probably what did it in. Captioned: "It is unreasonable to think about it."
Norito's initial tweet explained "Residents' testimony suggests that the Russian soldiers stationed here did not harm Russians and killed Ukrainian-speaking residents as hostile." The destroyed houses are presented as reflecting this distinction: "In Ivana Franca Street, there is a huge gap between homes that have been wiped out and homes that have remained intact." But what it shows is the worth brutality landed just where the Russians - the military ones - were at. But then they based themselves there after killing the original resident, as reported, in the one case.
Some possible AFV remains and other clues, best seen in Kunisue Norito's photos (both shown in full above), of the area in front of 1 Ivana-Franka, the Shypilo family home. Most interesting is a small segment of tank tread, a small bit it could drive off without, if the rest was in good shape - or maybe a bit missed in some pre-photo cleanup of the scene? There's a coat with small tears, another coat with none we can see - some metal debris that few into a tree trunk or log - something electrical-looking and likely military grade (yellow, center) what might be an odd piece of charred wood also looks kind of like a boot, partly burned away, with a foot inside of it. In that sense, it seems like it would fit better with the fragmentary, charred bodies 600m to the northwest. But then laces would burn away, and charred flesh isn't usually this uniform black. Probable illusion, but such a good one I had to mention it just in case.
Some clues perhaps in this long view down Ivana-Franka (
Kunisue Norito on Twitter) - car notes: left/fore to right/aft: shelled one, V tail end, back-crushed car - gap - one crushed beside #2 RM, gap, 1+ on the right - gap - 1+ on the left - gap - 32 Ivana Franka visible "in the street" after it's turned left.
All mapped again:
Map detail | UNITAR building damage assessment up to March 31 includes for this area 3 orange dots in close proximity to say "severe damage" - the two on top of each other might indicate the houses of Yuri Pavlenko and the Shypilos - the left of 2 white dots for "possible damage" seems to correlate with the Gavryliuk house where Russians were also based, The orange and withe dots on the right must go to other spots we haven't seen. 6 more orange dots were placed just to the NNE along possible escape routed for Russian armor, and some others, including a red "destroyed" house flank the lake along the approach from the northeast. (props to Qoppa for pointing out this resource, also noting its limitations) That doesn't give dates; they just compare 3/31 images to ones from before the invasion. Could this shelling have happened on March 22?
A consideration of the general front lines in Bucha - or if there even were any, or if they even matter - was split off into its own post to explore the idea more generally, as I needed to do.
summary: Ukraine claimed no control at all within Bucha at least to March 23 - limited actions by fighters within the city seem quite likely, especially here in the southeast - doubtful but possible they would overrun the described headquarters, but they might circumvent it, if it didn't have many supporting checkpoints, for example.
If they died mid-day March 22, the rigor mortis note means the burning happened probably late on the 23rd, give or take half a day. The odds of the burning spot so close to the Irpin crossing being Russian held this late in the game ... are well below 100%, anyway.
Shelling deaths from shelled homes ... That all tracks regardless where Ukrainian forces were. But when the bodies are then burned to hide the clues ... Ukrainian hands would have obvious motive to hide the signs of their handiwork, and they might be around, but it's questionable they could overrun or circumvent the Russian posts in the area in order to move these bodies and torch them perhaps right next to the local HQ. So if Russian hands retained control, they must have burned the bodies or allowed the burning, anyway. It might have been to hide their own crime, to hide a crime that wasn't theirs but that for which they would bear the blame, or for some other reason like to instill terror.
But again, we have no images or specific location for that local HQ, and just one report even mentions it. In the alley where it was said to be, there's no evident sign of fighting at all that we see. Perhaps we don't see the signs, or there was no fighting for this base, or
that's never where their base was? There were some damaged buildings noted in the UN study (1 severely, 1 possibly) on the next side street to the SW, Proletarska st.. These damage points, again, are undated. But if they happened, say March 19 or 20, we can see the potential significance.
The area right after the Hostomel's'ke Hwy bridge is likely the first area Kiev could operate from in serious force, and the neighborhoods down to the tracks would likely come next, if there were any reconquest from this side. A base near the tracks might get hammered and overrun on the 22nd. Some armor would escape, while others might be knocked out along the route. This all might kill or badly wound some residents at the 2 houses and perhaps others.
The guys responsible would have access to the site of their work, to clean up the collateral damage ... this would require no locals reporting what would be difficult to hide - through some kind of intimidation or perhaps through a total absence of witnesses - everyone gone or staying in the basement the whole time ... I don't suppose that is very likely, but possible. No one seems to have seen the Russians actually leave, any more than they saw the neighbors disappear. One (suspiciously late) morning, they were all just gone. Maybe the night before, or a few nights before that, they could hear a hot battle on their street, and maybe some ensuing traffic and gunshots they don't understand or don't mention. Maybe some "other Russians" appeared at the very end, and it was sort of confusing.
If so, once the neighbors were vanished and the shelling clues were muddled in the flames - to cover their tracks, you could say - that would open up other narratives, like "rough and uncouth" Siberian thugs hacking people up to "instill control." First it was sworn they were shot, and not shelled. Then when it became clear they were in pieces, it was shot and "tortured." The "inhuman orcs" cut off many of their limbs, maybe with a hacksaw and maybe while alive, disemboweled or ripped some in half somehow, besides shooting them a lot and apparently slicing them in random spots like their scalps and cheeks - eventually moved the mess "in a tank" to their own functioning headquarters and burned them there, as if to clarify the point. ... and then they went back to their quieter base to reflect on what they'd done, and to suffer that subsequent, unrelated but well-deserved shelling at the now-vacated civilian homes.
We don't have to buy that kind of scenario or absorb any of its toxic "lessons." But while there's a certain logic and a possibility to it, any false-flag type of activity is not as clearly indicated as I first suspected. A lot just remains unclear.
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In fact ... by this big map Engel saw, even the majority of Irpin was Russian-held, so the Vokzalna-Soborna crossing was out of Ukrainian hands (angled red box in the middle). Manaz showed Ukraine taking all of northern Irpin on the 19th, but we're skipping that. Still, I've always taken that crossing as Ukrainian-held the whole time. If it were lost, that's not "big gains." It's a big loss. .png)
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