The Killing of the Chikmaryov Family

< Bucha Massacre: The Killing of the Chikmaryov Family

July 5, 2022

(rough, incomplete - last updates 6/8)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What happened? (general)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oleksandr's Injuries

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

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

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

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

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

Prosecution Witness / Muder Weapon Left Behind

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Alternate Version?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Identified or Not?

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

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

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

March 5 or March 6? or Even Later?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Direction of Travel

(not so important, but it needed checked on)

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

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

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

Donbas Ethnic Russians? 

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

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

Geolocation Stuff

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

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

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

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

Peripheral video and reports:

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

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

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

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