Ruins from the "russian world" in Bucha. Exclusive report on burials, destroyed tanks, and more

In early April, the Ukrainian authorities announced the long-awaited liberation of the Kyiv region with Ukrainian flags finally appearing over the towns of Bucha and Borodianka. But after the occupiers and saboteurs were expelled from the city, it became clear that they had left behind evidence of terrible crimes — mass graves of Ukrainians, murdered children and women burned alive. Read about what Bucha looks like now in a report by a Telegraf correspondent.

Here they were killed and the russians tried to get rid of the evidence of their crimes, says Andrii Nebytov, the Kyiv region's police chief pointing to a large gone out fire near the center of Bucha. In it lie the bodies of six people — two women and four men who were probably burned alive.

Forensic experts found a gunshot wound on the body of one of the women while others did not have them. Instead they froze in agony, begging for help. One burned body probably belongs to a child.

According to Nebytov, there are more of these graves, many more since the police and rescuers have just begun searching for the dead.

"We will be finding them in the forests, parks. Neighbors will be reporting about the corpses when they return home," says Nebytov.

According to Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, only 117 dead have been identified so far with forensic experts working on identifying others. But Bucha has witnessed a massacre of civilians.

After the Ukrainian army entered the town, they found bodies everywhere — lying on the streets of the town, in the basements with their hands tied, wearing white bandages that would tell the occupiers that these were Ukrainians, tortured men and raped children.

Locals say the russians would sometimes shoot children in their arms or legs if they weren't running fast enough — just for fun.

"One day during the occupation, my neighbors — a man and a teenage boy — went outside to get something to eat, and they shot the man, who raised his hands as if he was surrendering, in the head. They shot the boy too, but he was wearing a hat, and it saved him, he survived. At night, they were brought home, and the woman buried her husband in their yard," says Liudmyla Ivanivna, who has been in the city throughout the occupation.

She also says that during all this time there was almost nothing to eat, and the apartment became so cold that she started having problems with her legs and now she is forced to walk with a stick.

We lived between five of their checkpoints, says Vladyslava, another Bucha resident, and sometimes even negotiating a trip for water was difficult — they would just shoot people. The Kadyrov’s henchmen were especially cruel. They would just torture and humiliate people. They could undress a person, tie their hands, put them on the ground, and then kill them. They liked to shoot parents in front of their children. A 14-year-old boy with three wounds once ran into the kindergarten where we were hiding. He wasn’t even screaming, he just asked for help. Shortly before that, his father was shot before his eyes.

People were also executed by the russian army, locals say, especially if the Ukrainians didn't want to give away their food. "When people found out about this, of course, they gave everything away. If a person, say, did not want to give up his chickens, they could then shoot everyone — them, their chickens, and their dogs. We were starving and our neighbor would kiss the hands for water and an egg, and there are people who have not eaten for two weeks."

The worst thing for the locals in those days for the locals was, oddly enough, silence.

"If there was silence, it means that the soldiers moved their positions, and it was necessary to look for a new hiding place so as not to get hit by bullets. There were 25 people in our bomb shelter with the youngest being just 3 years old," says Vladyslava.

It was the hardest for men — they were killed, young and old. Sometimes they left the old people alone, although they still humiliated them.

The town itself was also subjected to torture and destruction — windows were broken everywhere, sometimes half a floor would be missing, all the stores were destroyed and the russians stole all the food from them. They were looting in Bucha and would kick people out of their houses based on whichever one they liked best. They stole people’s TV’s and stereos, clothing, cellphones.

You can even see a guitar brought out from one of the apartment to the yard. It is standing next to a bag of potatoes and a box from some expensive jewelry apparently grabbed by the invaders from someone's home.

Perhaps here they sang songs about the imminent victory over the Ukrainian capital, which they were promised in russia. According to one of the local men, a russian officer, when asked why they came here, answered: because we have many friends in Kyiv, they will greet us with flowers. Now we can see their graves when we pass by, because our soldiers killed them, the Bucha local says.

But Vokzalnaya Street was the one to suffer the most. According to the police, the most fierce fighting took place here.

There are broken and burnt Russian tanks with the remnants of the "second army of the world" sticking out of them. One exhibit attracts the most attention — a looted piece in a boot. "One’s here, one’d not," as the employees of the State Emergency Service reminisced bitterly nearby.

Despite the fact that heavy fighting continued here in recent days, people continued to live in some houses.

"The ceiling was falling on us, the doors flew out, and we were laying on the floor during round-the-clock artillery shelling. We couldn’t leave because our elderly parents in need of medical care," says a 56-year-old Bucha resident who spent the entire time of the occupation on this street. There are tears in his eyes. According to him, when the russian army was expelled, they found 15 corpses of civilian lying on the street.

The buildings on the Vokzalnaya street were gone. No walls, doors, windows, and sometimes no houses at all. Only fences with the inscription "People" in white. Getting food on this street was especially difficult and water was first taken from the pipes in the basements, and then from the well.

But even as we speak Bucha is slowly returning, and in a few days they were promised communication, all the while they have the military bringing food, domestic cats are roaming the streets the way people do, and they quite understand how to continue to live. But they want to live.

"We greeted our military with tears in our eyes and they said that everything will be fine, and we believed them."

I have a final question for thr local people in need.

"We need gasoline because it's very cold. We have a generator and we can fill the phones all over the street, heat the kettles. Maybe even turn on the TV, because we don't even know what's going on in Ukraine. When we were occupied, there was also a big problem, but solar panels helped us out. To get to them, we have to go under the bullets … ".

Photo and Video by Yuliia Zabelina and Yevhen Zavhorodnyi, Telegraph