Decay, torture, and torture of missing loved ones: Inner village ravaged by Russian forces | World News
Boghdanivka is a small farming village on the northern road from Kyiv to Chernihiv, just east of the Dnipro River.
For weeks in March and April, it was occupied by Russian The soldiers when they tried to advance to the capital Kyiv, before retreating, were defeated.
They leave behind memories of pervasive debauchery, torture, and families desperately searching for news of missing loved ones.
This is Boghdanivka’s story, but it could be about countless villages in Ukraine where life changed during 100 days of war.
“He loaded his machine gun and said, ‘Now we’re going to kill you’.”
Alexsandr, not his real name, hid the clothes he was wearing the night the Russians came looking for him – he was keeping them safe as evidence of war crimes.
He showed us the bottom of his bloodstained tracksuit, where a nail was driven into his knee. And the thread used to tie his hands behind his back. He still has scars on his face from a cigarette smoked.
“He (a soldier) hit me on the head with a knife. He kicked me in the back. Then he put my hand on the table and used a machine gun to hit them three times in the butt. The arm was broken. severely bent I understood it was a fracture he shouted at me.
“He kept saying ‘you’re an animal’ and ‘I’m going to cut something out of you'”. He pulled out a knife, pressed it to my stomach, and said, “I’m going to cut your penis so you don’t reproduce. There were about five people. They hit me from all sides.
“I was hit so hard that something cracked in my head and I fell to the floor and his foot was bleeding. They said, ‘Stand up, or we’ll cut the tendon in his leg. friend”.
“He kept kicking my leg until it broke. I got up and sat on the chair, lost my mind, lost my voice, broke my nose. Then he asked. , ‘Do you smoke?’ I say no.
“And he brought the ash to my cheek. Then he said, ‘Take this animal, it has covered everything here with blood.’
Alexander had a scar on his face when he was tortured by Russian soldiers in Boghdanivka with cigarettes
“They arrested me and led me downstairs to the cellar. They put me on a plastic chair. They said, ‘Wait, we’re going to come and kill you’.”
“Then he came down and said, ‘I’m a madman, I’m going to cut you’.
“He came down and started hitting me with his fist, knife in hand. Then he took my ear and cut it a little bit. Then in the morning he mounted his machine gun and said, ‘ Now we’ll kill you.’.”
Russian soldiers smear their poop on the wall
The village school around the corner. What’s left of it.
When the Russian army occupied the village, the school was used as their main base. It is now a burned shell, completely turned into a trash can. There were mattresses on the floor where Russian soldiers slept and empty bottles of wine.
Read more:
100 Days of War in Ukraine: The Devastating Consequences of Putin’s Invasion
In math class there is a calendar marking the days they arrive and the days they leave – and next to it is a notice written in English.
As a final insult, they smeared their poop on the wall and set it on fire as they retreated.
“We know they’ve been here, that they live here, but I don’t think adults, who might have children, can do that,” the headteacher told us.
“We thought they were going to live here, build and move out. But what they did was horrible. It was hard for me, it was hard for the kids. The kids cried when they saw the kindergarten being destroyed. burned”.
Russian soldiers went from house to house, marking the front gate if anyone lived there.
Yulia Vasylenko’s husband has been missing since being captured by Russian forces from Boghdanivka
Like everyone, Yulia Vasylenko received a knock on the door – she was married to the village policeman, Viacheslav.
He was taken away that day and has not been seen since.
“Five soldiers have arrived,” she said.
“Two were inside and three were waiting in the street. They told my husband to put his hands behind his back and then they took him away. We haven’t seen him since and we don’t know anything about him. I hope he’s in prison – we need him alive, we miss him.”
She thinks he may have been betrayed by a traitor.
“He was certainly taken away and beaten,” she said.
“He was betrayed. It was 100% turned in by someone. They know exactly who he is and where we live.”
These are the only stories of a Ukrainian village.
Men, women and children whose lives and futures have been irretrievably altered and damaged.
