GENOCIDE PART 2

Other people by the nature of their jobs are used to living under insane amounts of pressure, but with each living day; this is different... They are witnessing the burning of cars, and corpses being eaten by stray dogs, along with many acts of selfishness and people selling looted supplies for a small profit. Under all of this though there are many gestures of kindness, those who are willing to give away their last bit of food and medicine to help those who are in greater need. As the lady goes to deliver food to basements, she tries her hardest to put on a brave face, she can see the deep desperation in people’s faces. This is a war that fears no evil. An estimated 350,000 people have left Mariupol, escaping from their homes, and their city. Some are trying to start their lives anew in Russia, others are attempting to rebuild elsewhere in Ukraine. Many have become refugees in other countries, working hard to put the memories of the horrors they witnessed and the losses they sustained behind them. Just days after the Russian invasion, the city had held 430,00 people on 2nd March, unfortunately, the city found itself surrounded by the enemy within the war.

Strikes to the infrastructure cut the power and water supplies to most parts of the city instantly, there were also lots of food shortages, resulting in a few people dying of both dehydration and starvation. Most people refused to loot the local supermarkets as they felt it would not be right so they waited in the hopes that it will all be fine. Satellite photos showed that civilian homes and buildings have been destroyed, most of the structures lie within just rubble and ash and the once densely residential district had been - “nearly destroyed” with the future unknown, all the city could do at that point was a fight and see what would happen next.

No funerals were held, and no memorials. No public gatherings to mourn those killed by Russia’srelentless attacks on this once peaceful port city. This had become a symbol of the resistance that Ukraine had, but it was too dangerous for them.

Instead, authorities collected all the bodies in a truck and to the best that they could they buried them in narrow trenches, which were dug into the frozen latewinter ground that Mariupol had to offer.

In this horror, the grave trenches told the horrifying story of a city that was under seige. There was the 18-month-old that was hit by the shrapnel that flew around him he was lifeless whilst his parents ran into the hospital with him, the 16-yearold boy that was killed by an explosion whilst playing a soccer game in a field next to the school field; the girl who was no older than 6 who was rushed into hospital with bloody pyjamas, she was hit by shrapnel, she was dead before she could be saved, her dad sat beside her in the ambulance. All these children lay on the stretcher that they tried to be saved on, covered up with their parents asking one question “Why?”

All the prayers that they asked god were not answered, and all parents who have lost a child during this war, have all lost a part of them. These are only a few that are not allowed to rest, but these are children, helpless and innocent.

“The dead were largely abadoned in the streets”

Serhiy Kralya, 41, looks at the camera after surgery at a hospital in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine on Friday, March 11, 2022. Kralya was injured during shelling by Russian forces.

(AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A body lies covered by a tarp in the street in Mariupol, Ukraine, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Serhii, father of teenager Iliya, cries on his son’s lifeless body lying on a stretcher at a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

HOW MUCH MORE?

A car burns outside the maternity hospital damaged by Russian shelling in Mariupol on 9 March. Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

A woman stands outside a maternity hospital that was damaged by shelling in Mariupol. Photograph: Mstyslav Chernov/AP

The attack on the drama theatre was one of the largest war crimes committed during the invasion of Ukraine committed by Russia.

Within this entire invasion, thousands were killed, and hundreds were injured, these were mostly women and children were killed in the horrifying attack. The theatre was the hub for the distribution of medicine, food and water. This was also the designated gathering point for the people who hoped to be evacuated via the corridors that were announced to happen.

On March 24th Russian forces captured the city centre of Mariupol, this was a ploy to cover up the crimes they had done. They began giving out information to others, this information was false. As the theatre stood there broken and damaged Russians within the city used it as a backdrop for propaganda, the destruction of their history was used for fame on social media. The citizens felt betrayed, and people were seeking shelter within this giant building as it got destroyed within seconds.

At the end of 2022, the theatre was boxed with scaffolding, covering up the horror, the bulldozed bombed-out parts of the building to the very ground, this ensured that they covered up a large part of the crimes that were committed. Amnesty International (a non-government human rights organisation), determined that the attack was done by a deadly airstrike, which was carried out by the Russian Forces, the bombs used are most likely two 500-kilo ones, they knew what they were intending to do and they intentionally bombed the building knowing what the consequences are. The building was recognised as a civilian object.

The attack is known as a war crime, there were a large number of people within the theatre at the time of the attack, sheltering from the bombs. This was their new and these ways of living were seen from the satellite images, Russian forces knew this because they had access to these images.

After reports of there being Ukrainian military present inside or close to the building in the days leading up to the attack, these were proven to be untrue. Witnesses told amnesty that were at most one or two soldiers in the building, but that was to deliver food, drop off more civilians fleeing from the shelling, or they would give the hiding information about the possibility of evacuation. This was the only cause for there being a Ukrainian soiler within this building.

Debris covers the inside of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre following a March 16, 2022, bombing in Mariupol. The bombing of the theater that was used as a shelter stands out as the single deadliest known attack against civilians to date in the Ukraine war. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov, File)

On March 4th, there was news of a potential evacuation procedure that would take place, this news circulated extremely fast through the two, the number of needing citizens rose rapidly, and the news spread either by text message or simply by word of mouth, this was the quickest way that any knowledge could spread with there being the chance of the signal disappearing.

By March 5th, more than 1,000 people were gathered outside of this theatre, to the sad news of everyone the evacuation attempt seemed to have failed, and because of this the number of helpless people began to rise even more, there was a lack of space for the number of civilians that were entering.

Roughly about a week later on March 13th, a variety of volunteers who were sheltering at the time wrote the word “Children” in Russian on the ground outside of the building, this was very large within the front and back of the building, and it was large enough for an aircraft of any type to see. It was seen from the satellite images that are circling the internet. The people within were symbolising their desperation for survival, little did they know their pleas would be disregarded. Everything that was happening within the weeks was too fast for anyone to keep up with, fighting continued and the world around them was still falling apart slowly.

On 15th March, hundreds flee from the theatre and they leave the city in a convoy that leaves, several hundreds of people are left behind. With fewer people left within the space, there was more room, people started to move into the areas that they believed to be the safest. The main area was the basement as it is under the foundations and rooms of the building that were protected by thick walls.

The Russian word for “children” had been written on the ground outside the theatre. Photography: REUTERS

The day that everyone was dreading came... 16th March, the time was 10:02 am and the theatre is still visible from the satellite images, most of the parked cars that were previously there are now gone. Hundreds of people remain inside the building.

At 10:20 am a large explosion was seen on the same imagery and the shelter was destroyed, the roof of it was crumbled and various other parts were destroyed. Up to 800 kilos of TNT exploded inside the performance area space, this was a quite large space and people sheltered there in the last few days before the attack. It takes usually two FAB-500 bombs to detonate at the same time to create a blast that would be that large and powerful. They smashed through the roof on the Eastern side, and the bombs detonated at the stage, killing most people that surrounded this explosion. A man who was in the theatre at the time stated

“I went back to look for my dad, there were many injured people, first I saw his arm. I saw a familiar hand. You know the hand of your loved ones, I didn’t want my mum to see.”

This is just one of the heartbreaking stories that the world heard. The ones that sheltered in this once playful and full of life building, the war seemed to have followed them.

In another area of the building, there was less severe damage. 200-300 people were sheltering in the basement near the entrance, this took little to no damage. The ones who survived had to witness the ones that did not, they had to walk over the bodies that lay there lifeless, because of one selfish action.

The evidence based on the attack and the cause suggests very strongly that it was a deliberate attack against helpless civilians and therefore falls under a war crime.

Rubble from the damaged Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre sits after the March 16, 2022, bombing in Mariupol. The bombing of the theater, which was used as a shelter, stands out as the single deadliest known attack against civilians to date in the Ukraine war. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)

BARBARIC

The body of a three week old baby lies on the floor of a hospital basement.

Newborn's body in Mariupol hospital lies on floor of makeshift morgue

Patients in this hospital can be heard screaming in pain, and doctors have been forced to turn wards into operating theatres - every day in the besieged city of

Using the torch of his phone, where there are no morgues just basements, makeshift morgues made out of previous food storage spaces. In this hospital doctor, Valeriy Drengar shows three bundles of cloths, each encasing the body of a baby inside.

"All of them were injured. They arrived, but we could not save them. We must get used to it, but then in the evening you can't take it out of your mind."

The horror that unfolds he must live every day. He unbundles one of the babies, all that is known about her is that she was 22 days old and her family name was Panasenko. The newborn was injured in artillery shelling and could not be saved by doctors in the southern Ukrainian city under siege by Russian forces.

Further, down the corridor, the bodies of the deceased lay next to each other. All the hospitals around them have been bomed, no one can come to collect the bodies of their loved ones.

Putin is killing the innocent and there are no supplies getting to the hospital which means they are fastly running out of the life-saving supplies that they need to save everyone.

“Children, women are being killed, hospitals are overcrowded. We are all here for what? I don’t understand. Genocide.”

“We are the only location that takes injured people in. There is no other place,”

A Russian-speaking medic said, he further explained that the district hospitals morgue was already beyond maximum capacity, there is no where else to bury people, they think about mass graves as this is the only way for the victims to get the peace that they deserve, but it is too dangerous for them to proceed with this.

22 days old baby killed by Russian artillery.

Photograph by AP

A six year old girl, and a hopeless moment in a hospital

On a Sunday a fatally wounded 6-year-old girl was rushed into a hospital in Mariupol.

Her mother cried outside of the amubulance and her father sat with her covered in blood, he was rushed into the hospital to be treated for his injuries as well. The family were shopping in a supermarket in the southeastern port city when Russia started to shell the area. A medical team member pumped her chest, fighting desperately to revive her. Her mother stood outside the ambulance, weeping. Once she had arrived at the hospital a worker was already starting CPR on her in the ambulance, a medical team member raced to her and started shouting

“Take her out! Take her out! We can make it!”

They placed her onto a gurney and quickly wheeled her inside, the doctors and nurses that were on-shift fought to revive her. The journalist who was there stated “She was pale. Her brown hair was pulled back with a rubber band. Her bloody pyjama pants were decorated with cartoon unicorns,”

A look of an innocent child. She could not be saved though, despite all the efforts. The team tried their best efforts to save the girl, they were prodding her with injections and trying to revive her with a defibrillator, as another nurse wept out of saddness.

A doctor who was pumping oxygen into her at the time looked into the camera of the Associated Press, the video journalist in the room at the time and although he was angry he says

“Show this to Putin, the eyes of this child and the crying doctors.”

The body lay on the gurney, blood dripping beside it onto the floor, she could not be saved, the doctor gently reached for her face and closed her eyes, this just shows the heartbreaking example of the young girl, it demonstrates the devastating human cost of Russia’s lethal attacks.

Her body lie alone in the room alone, covered in a brightly coloured polyester jacket, this was now covered in blood. Ukraine had later on reported 352 civilian deaths, including 16 children, since the invasion began.

Medics perform CPR on a girl at the city hospital of Mariupol, who was injured during shelling in a residential area in eastern Ukraine, February 27, 2022. The girl did not survive. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

The lifeless body of a girl killed during the shelling of a residential area lies on a medical cart at the city hospital of Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, February 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Young mother collapses in boyfriend’s arms after toddler killed in Russian shell attack

An unconscious 18-month-old baby boy named Kirill Yatsko was killed when his home in Mariupol was shelled during the shelling, the boy had suffered from being hit with shrapnel to his head, and he was lifeless as he was bought into the hospital.

During this attack, there was meant to be an act of ceasefire, but thousands were targeted that day. His distraught mother and her boyfriend ran him into the hospital where the doctors put oxygen masks on him and massaged his chest, by doing this they hoped it would get his heart to start again as it stopped, they used a defibrillator as extra hope for this. Nonetheless, he couldn’t be saved, his mother kept repeating

“Why,

why, why?”

As she whales in sadness, the doctor who couldn’t save the baby sat on the floor looking down at him, trying to process what he had just witnessed.

Outside the room, in desperate hopes for their baby boy to be fine, in the corridor his mother was inconsolable, she started to be unsteady so her boyfriend takes her into his arms and helps her stay up, she cries loudly on his shoulders at the thought of her baby being gone.

The couple gets to see the baby one last time, his body is wrapped nicely in a blanket, and his mother unfolds the blanket, gently touches his cheek and gives him one last kiss; before she goes, the cover goes back over his face.

Marina kisses her son after he has died.

Photograph by AP

A Mariupol survivor’s story from the ‘darkest of hells’

A 50-year-old resident under the name of Andrei Marusov lives in Mariupol, he has almost been killed twice now since Russia invaded Ukraine.

In the early hours of March 12th, a missile from the Russian jet reduced the two upper stories of Marusov's nine-floor residential building to rubble and dust.

"Ten meters lower, I wouldn't be talking to you now,"

He said whilst talking on a telephone from Kyiv. By mid-March, the highly populated city was encircled by Russians and Mariupol was without electricity, running water, heating and gas; this made people's lives a lot harder to live as they struggled to do basic tasks. To help the residents' mobile networks were placed in neighbourhoods.

When the electricity was cut, nearly all the shops were closed. "After two or three days, the looting started." And then it started to get worse when people started to steal from pharmacies, around a third of the city's population were pensioners; the access to medicine for them is a matter of life or death. When the gas was turned off, people started to cook on open fires in their courtyards.

“To begin with, it was a sort of surrealistic scene, as if the whole city was out picnicking. After a day or two, it became a tragedy. People were cooking in stairwells and chopping down trees in public parks for firewood,”

Marusov said, this started to become a common sight for him and many others. The humanitarian situation became worse as unusual weather started to kick in, and the temperatures started to dip to as low as 15 degrees below zero.

The second time Marusov was nearly killed came only just two days after the airstrike that hit his apartment building. The first two entrances that were to his building were on fire, he went to the fire to see if it had spread to his entrance. The Russian troops were there already, they had detained him and searched him; they found his phone whilst doing this search. He had pictures of the destruction within the city, after waiting for several hours with his hands behind his back tied, one of the soldiers guarding him asked the military police officer what they wanted to do with him.

“The officer said: ‘Dispatch him.’ This meant I was going to be shot.”

As the solder took him away he got a chill down his spine, after walking for roughly 100 meters he thought to himself: ‘This is it, I’m being led away for execution.’” All he could think about during that time was his son, the soldier standing in front of him pointed his rifle to his chest, however, the soldier didn't seem to carry out the order he was given. Instead, he took Marusov to the basement of the neighbouring house, civilians were in there sheltering from the bombs.

After this ordeal he went through he decided on leaving Mariupol, he left dead at 8 am otherwise if he didn't "I would be killed there."

The road to Zaproizhia was 230 kilometres from Mariupol, it took him three days of walking and hitchhiking, he was also forced to stop at dozens of Russian checkpoints, and he had to wait for curfews to end before he could travel further. One evening, he stopped for the night on the roadside in sub-zero temperatures.

“I lit a fire in the tiny forest, I made myself a shelter from some branches, and melted snow for drinking. It was a terrible night. I nearly fell asleep several times. But I kept telling myself: ‘You survived airstrikes, you escaped being shot — so get up, go get some branches, and don’t fall asleep.'”

This is just one of many stories of people who are lucky enough to leave Mariupol, some people didn't have this luck.

Andriy Marusov Photo: Radio Svoboda

More than 200 bodies uncovered in Mariupol

Russian forces have been accused of deliberately targetting sheltering civilians

Workers who were digging through the rubble of a destroyed apartment building in Mariupol found 200 bodies lying in the basement, this is discovered as a new ‘war crime’ as this is suffering from a major level.

Ukrainian authorities said this is according to Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor.– a grim reminder of the horrors that are still coming to light in the ruined city, which has seen some of the worst sufferings of the ongoing war, the sheer number of victims makes it one of the deadliest known attacks of the war. As they were digging the bodies were decomposing and the stench of them had spread around the neighbourhood, it is not been clear when they were discovered. Some of the dead that were found here have been buried in mass graves.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has accused the Russians of waging “total war” and seeking to inflict as much death and destruction as possible on his country.

Some bodies were wrapped up in various cloths, these awaited to be collected and buried, some of these bodies were children, just waiting on the ground to be buried. No one can live in peace with this current war, their homes collapse from over and under them and they die being buried under the rubble and dust, with no one able to rescue or find them.

A view shows heavily damaged residential buildings in the city of Mariupol. (REUTERS)

Life in a basement isn’t life

Children sit in basements, of their homes or just random basements, anything for shelter against the bombing of their city and homes.

They all sit terrified of what is next to come, some play outside when they can, the descruction lays behind them whilst they enjoy their everyday tasks as a child should.

They were trapped, in a dark and dingy basement, there are desperate mothers with children, this is a problem that is widespread across Ukraine, but Mariupol is heartbreaking. As the Russian Bombs rain down on the city the mothers are begging to be saved.

Lawyer, Victoria Konovalov pleads to the world to help evacuate the group of 20 women, children and old people she is with who have been sheltering without heating or water. The children cry and she is trembling with fear as the bombs unleash chaos.

“We are in Mariupol. Today is March 13th. We are in the cellar. There are 20 children and old people. We don’t have food, first aid and vital supplies. Shops and pharmacies are destroyed. We do not have heating gas and water supplies. Military planes are flying above us dropping bombs.”

The basement is dark and wet, crowded with different families who have hopes of being saved. It is not known if Ms Konovalov and others with her in the video are among those who have managed to flee to safety.

As well as this basement that is packed with different families, according to many more reports, hundreds of civilians are also crammed into the basements of large public buildings because of this many of them are developing severe medical problems and running short of food and clean drinking water.

People settle in a bomb shelter on March 6. (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP)

A resident is seen in the cellar of a house in Mariupol, , Ukraine on March 18, 2022. Photograph by Maksim Blinov/Sputnik/AP

Some cook on the street when power and gas is out in their homes in Mariupol. Photo courtesy of Olha Ashykhmina.

An aerial views shows residential buildings on the corner of Shevchenko boulevard and Kuprina street damaged by shelling in the city of Mariupol. Photograph: ALEXEY KUDENKO/AP

Mariupol, Ukraine.

Photograph courtesy of Olha Ashykhmina

Bucha

Before the war the town of Bucha near the capital Kyiv there stood a population of roughly 35,000 civilians within a peaceful sunny town.

This town is now known as Bucha Massacre, according to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights an estimated 73-178 people were brutally killed and according to the Ukrainian Government, a further estimated 458 were killed during the short time they were occupied for. This occupation happened within the second phase, there were two phases with the first phase lasting from 27th Feb till 12th March and the second one lasting from 29th till 31st March a short but lethal time.

Bucha Massacre

Bucha is best known for the “Bucha Massacre” This was the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians, and prisoners of war by the Russian forces during the fight for the occupation of Bucha.

Thispeaceful city holds the most war crimes to be committed within one area, the local authorities have recovered many bodies including many children under the age of 18, 419 of these deaths were killed by various weapons and 39 appeared to have died of natural causes, these were possibly related to the occupation. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights documented the unlawful killings, these include executions of at least 73 civilians within Bucha.

Photos online show corpses of civilians who were lined up with their hands bound behind their backs, shot at point-blank range, which gives proof that these executions had taken place. Russian authorities have denied these responsibilities and claimed instead Ukraine faked the footage and staged the killings themselves as a false operation. Russia further claimed that the footage released and the photographs that have gone viral of the dead bodies are “fake news”. Residents from Bucha who were there at the time said that the killings were carried out by the Russian Armed Forces.

There is further evidence to show that there is one specific regiment that carried out most of the killings within a certain street, this street was called Yablunska Street and it held a lot of deaths and horror to the point that it has been named the “Road of death” because of these tragedies.

Evidence that has been found would link to a certain military unit, it would also be linked to a certain set of commanders to the crimes that were committed, these crimes were a matter of life and death, mostly resulting in death.

The New York Times spent roughly 8 months in Bucha, during this time they analysed thousands of hours of video footage included; street cameras, residents’ phones, and drones that were flown by the Ukrainian Military, these all provided heart-breaking evidence that broke a nation and everyone who would watch it and see it. They retraced Russian movements hour by hour, and one of the military units took over Yablunska Street, wherever they had moved there was clear evidence that had always linked back to that set of certain commanders these had also linked to the killings of many civilians. 4 soldiers had got caught in the act of killing.

The main unit that was responsible was the 234th regiment, this was an air assault unit, a paratrooper unit that was based within Russia. These killings were proven to not be random acts of violence, but part of a methodical and lethal planned operation against the residents.

“These are crimes against humanity, war crimes against the law of war.”

The body of a man who was killed lies in the staircase of a building in Bucha, Ukraine, Sunday, April 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

AP/EFREM LUKATSKY - Russia faces a fresh wave of condemnation after evidence emerged of what appears to be deliberate killings of civilians in Ukraine.

February 27th which was 3 days into the invasion, a convoy of Russian soldiers goes towards Kyiv, they seemed to have entered the nearby suburb of Bucha, entering here they would go through the intersection at Yablunska Street, and the road ahead would lead them straight onto Kyiv, however, they were ambushed by Ukraine fighters, suffering from the heavy losses they retreated and left Bucha.

To the distress of the city on March 3rd, just as everything was returning to normal, the Russians return as well. They come back stronger, and more powerful, they are paratroopers the best trained in Russia and the best equipped. They go through a different route, and whilst doing this they secure different areas, going through the back of Bucha this was done instead of going straight for Kyiv like done before, they head straight for the industrial site, which was called 144 Yablunska Street, breaking into this would break the laws of war as it is a civilian infrastructure full of peoples homes, also by doing this they will set up base there.

As soon as they hit this building and street, they do not miss any chances, as they come back with anger they do not ignore any chances at all, they shoot at anything that moves with their powerful tanks, and this involves any civilian also.

One man that was involved in these deadly unprovoked strikes was a man called Volodymyr Ruchkowskyi, his car was struck by tank fire and lost control, he drove into a tree and was killed instantly, his girlfriend Olena tried desperately to help him escape but he had no choice to run and leave him in the burning car. This was one of the many deaths that were caused by deadly fires, the Russian forces seemed to not have any chances they clear the street and take over the large building.

4th March, the next day the Russian Enforcements arrive that their new base with their tanks and weapons, they are ready to start their ‘cleansing’ of Bucha. No one knew at the time what this would be and how it would end, they especially didn’t expect the killing of innocent residents. Soldiers are seen from various cameras securing and surrounding the areas, they search people’s homes looking for men of fighting age who may be a threat to them, by doing this process they also terrorised civilians into submission... Something a lot of people did not do.

A group of people were taken out of their homes. The men were separated from the women and the residents are taken to the new base that the Russian Enforcement has put into 144 Yablunska Street, seven of the 9 men that were taken to this base will be later on executed, this was unknown to them. These men were later on seen by civilians and bystanders on the floor outside of the building complex, their hands were tied behind their backs, and they had been tortured and killed... Their bodies would lie there for weeks, their lifeless bodies laid on the floor. This was just many of the attacks that the regiment had committed.

A dead body lies on the ground in a street in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv on April 2, 2022. (RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP)

A Ukrainian serviceman checks the dead body of a civilian for booby traps in the formerly Russian-occupied Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Ukraine, April 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

As the press moved further down the street they can confirm 3 more cases of deaths, innocent people lost their lives through the occupation.

Oleksander Kovalevskyi was out to get some food for his wife and their son, but he was shot dead. This was just a few yards from their home, a simple everyday task.

Another father was fleeing Bucha from the horror that was going on around them, he was fleeing with his family. He died during this attack and the stepdaughter lost her arm. A scar that will never leave her mind.

Another case was found but can't be identified, they were outside a shop... Lifeless on the path. All of these people were doing everyday tasks.

After the Russians had left their makeshift base the place was in shams and there were signs of destruction everywhere, boxes of ammunition were laid all over the floor and so did the listing units of the 234th unit, which had the soldier's names and the codes that they would use through their mission.

On March 5th in the early hours of the morning whilst all the Russian Soldiers were asleep residents were seen on CCTV fleeing Bucha, by cars, and on foot and they were doing it fast. Footage shows families even running at the intersection, moments after tanks and soldiers are going down the same intersection. Ready for the next day of horror.

This time they are heading to the intersection that they were ambushed at before, but instead of going towards Kyiv they go in the opposite direction this was so they could take up a second base, a little bit further from their first one. Several vehicles, especially tanks crash through people's fences and they occupy civilians' homes, destroying their gardens and looting the local supermarket for supplies. Russians even search the nearby apartment buildings for more loot, whereas others set up sniping positions.

Bodies reportedly lay in the streets for days. Photograph: RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP

Even though there is no clear threat to anyone, by 11 am they had already killed their next innocent victims, this is visible from the satellite images, a tree was shot down and the body lays beside it.

The tanks fire again, this time at a blue van. A witness later confirmed that the van was a family vehicle, they were trying to escape but did not manage to get this chance. 40 minutes later the van is seen on fire, next to them was another person who attempted to leave, and from his head blood poured from it onto the ground around him. Not only was that street just affected, but more of Bucha was also murdered and destroyed, in their homes, their bodies lay on the ground outside their homes, in their homes and some were even trapped between their doors. Russians moved into these civilian homes, some lived in their basements, and others came out of their houses for the first time in a while they went to look for food but instead they were met by the Russians that were slowly destroying their memories.

On the street, outside someone's home, five more people were killed. One man a little bit further down was killed by being shot, he was carrying a bag of potatoes. When given the chance no matter what time of day it is or how much time they have to achieve this the residents evacuate. They have to do this by avoiding their dead neighbours who lay on the ground. These are all down from this certain regiment.

On March 18th, the unit is seen killing more civilians. This time they kill next to a roundabout further down the street. On top of the various war crimes that Russia committed as a nation the 234th regiment committed a large handful of them. Russian forces used the phones of the Ukrainians killed to make calls back to Russia, these phone calls were all linked back to the 234th regiment, calling back to their families. Linking the information provided to the trauma is important in cases like these, even if the soldier didn’t commit the crime or pull the trigger they would and should still be held accountable for what was committed, even if they knew about what the other troops committed, in Bucha we know what was committed and that the troops who killed civilians under the commanding officers were walking among the dead and killing with no reason, breaking the laws of war, this city is traumatised by the violence that has happened, the dozen that was found across the street are among the 400 people killed and tortured in the town within March.

A dog stands next to the body of an elderly woman killed at the entrance of her house in Bucha, outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Municipal workers remove the body of a man who died from a house in Bucha, Thursday, April 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Ukrainian children's summer camp used by Russian soldiers

Tortured bodies found in Ukraine children’s camp and dogs feast on rotting corpses as Bucha is ‘the tip of the iceberg’

Something terrible happened in the basement of that children's summer camp, the steps leading down to its unlocked doors were lame and filled with trash from the Russian army rations; dried macaroni, empty juice boxes, and tins of meat. The airless tunnel that stood in the way resembled a series of torture chambers, these were divided by concrete walls. There was a room that appeared to be used for executions at the front, its walls pocked with bullet holes. In another room, the Russians had brought in two metal bedsprings and leaned them against the wall. To Ukrainian investigators, the tableaus suggested that prisoners were tortured here: tied to the bedsprings and interrogated; strapped to the plank and waterboarded.

After Taras Shapravskyi visited the crime scene that the Russian Troops left behind at a summer camp, there were "Signs of torture" on the bodies of the victims. Five men were dead, they wore civilian clothes and were found in the chamber, they had burns, bruises and lacerations. Two trails of dried-up blood ran down a wall as it fell into the dirt, there was a fleece hat that appeared to have a bullet hole in it.

Inside the summer camp for children ages 7 to 16, the Russians set up a garrison from which to terrorize the town, shooting at civilian passersby and bringing prisoners down into the basement. Empty liquor bottles lay among snipers’ nests dug beside a playground.

In one room, the Russians left a pile of hair shorn off with clippers. On the floor of another sat two lumps of human excrement. “This was no army,” says Roslik, the camp groundskeeper. “This was a horde.”

Most of the bodies that were lying around had already been exhumed and sent to the morgue for identification and a proper burial, something that anyone innocent deserves. A long plastic sheet was draped over those who remained in the deep pit, this was to keep the crows at bay.

Olha Ivanitska, who was an elderly parishioner, saw two of her friends as she limped into the church’s vestibule. She was so shocked that she embraced them and touched their cheeks with her fragile hands. “You’re still alive,” she said “We’re still alive.” They were all in disbelief.

They knew they were lucky. As they emerged from their homes, from their basements and bunkers, the people of Bucha often found their friends missing or dead, their streets full of wrecked military vehicles, and their neighbours’ homes shelled into rubble.

At one of the local schools, more than a hundred empty boxes of Russian artillery shells lay in the deserted schoolyard, this is among the empty beer bottles and further army rations. Most of the windows in the building have been shattered. Around the school, many of the victims of the Bucha massacre still lie in temporary graves. One of them is at the edge of the children’s summer camp. Horrifying scenes to have happened in a children's place of learning and fun.

Dead bodies found in the basement of a children’s summer camp. Photography Anastasia Vlasova/ Getty Images

Bodies lie in a mass grave in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 3, 2022.

(AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

‘This Tears my Soul Apart’: A Ukrainian Boy and an Execution

Yura Nechyporenko, 15, places a chocolate at the grave of his father, Ruslan Nechyporenko, at a cemetery in Bucha,

As Yura listened to his father die next to him, the boy lay still on the road. His elbow burned where a bullet had pierced him. His thumb stung from being grazed as the bullet passed by his fingers. Another execution was in progress on a lonely street, many of the bodies that lay on the street had been shot in the head.

Fifteen year old Yura Nechyporenko was about to become one of them. In March Yura and his father, 47-year-old Ruslan, were biking down a tree-lined street. They were on their way to visit their vulnerable neighbours who were sheltering in their basements and homes, this was without electricity or running water. On their bikes was tied up white fabric, this was to symbolise that they were travelling in peace. When the soldier stepped from a dirt path to challenge them, Yura and his father immediately stopped and raised their hands.

“What are you doing?” Yura remembers the soldier asking. The soldier didn’t give Yura’s father time to answer. There were two gunshots, his father fell to the ground, mouth open, and already bleeding. A shot hit Yura’s hand, and he fell, too. Another shot struck his elbow. He closed his eyes. A final shot was fired. As of May 12th 2022, in Bucha alone, 31 children under the age of 18 were killed and 19 wounded, according to local authorities. The sad truth about children is that they are having adulthood rushed upon them, they need to become more mature for these situations, not able to enjoy their childhood.

It was left to Yura's family to retrieve his father's body. They did so the following day, Yura's grandmother, who is in her 70s, pleaded with Russian soldiers to let her approach the body. They had their guns pulled, they let her walk ahead of them, watching all her moves. Another soldier in the distance shouted, “Don’t come here or we’ll kill you.” But he didn’t fire.

The family bought his father back in a wheelbarrow, he was later rolled in a carpet and placed on an old wooden door, amongst the sounds of shelling and gunfire, they buried him in the yard, in one makeshift grave, they made this quickly to avoid being caught.

Yura and his family left Bucha the next day along a rare evacuation corridor. The wounded boy walked first through the streets, holding a stick tied with a white towel, with a white sling around his arm. The family had to pass the scene of the shooting, they all shuddered as they walked past, the boy remembered everything that happened, holding resentment towards the soldiers.

As they walked closer to the evacuation point, Russian soldiers asked where they were going. They asked what had happened to Yura.“I was shot by a Russian soldier,” the boy replied. At that, his mother was terrified.

“I felt everything collapse inside me, I thought they would shoot us all.”

Yura Nechyporenko, 15, holds the hoodie he was wearing the day he says a Russian soldier tried to execute him in Bucha. (AP Photo Emilio Morenatti)

Yura Nechyporenko, places a chocolate at the grave of his father (AP Photo/ Petros Giannakouris)