At the end of February 2022, Russian troops occupied Buch-a small town on the northwestern outskirts of Kyiv. Soon their attack on the Ukrainian capital was stopped.
On March 31, the Kremlin ordered its soldiers to move away. After their departure on the streets, Buchi remained the bodies of hundreds of murdered civilians. Writer Jonathan Littlel (“Benefitan”, “Chomsky notebooks. Notes about the Syrian War”) and photographer Antoine Dʼagat arrived at Kyiv’s suburb about a month later. The book “The uncomfortable place” on which they then worked was to become a reflection on the consequences of the massacres committed by the Nazis in Babi Yar, but turned into a certificate of crimes of two armies at once-not only German in 1941, but also Russian in 2022. The fact that Littlel and Dʼagat saw in Buch tells this fragment of her. You can buy the book “An uncomfortable place” in any store from this list or order it right from us. At the crossroads87. Through the intersection, which the 422th minibus drove, Yablonskaya Street passes. A lot of things happened there too. To the right of the intersection, the soldiers who freed the buch found four corpses of civilians, lying on the asphalt there and there: the first, curled up, on the corner, the second – on the side next to a small backpack, the third, a woman in a blue jacket with an almost completely torn left leg – on her back, hiding her face under a bicycle, a little at a slightly one after the fourth – fourth – with one -time with one -time. crossed legs. The fifth corpse, naked to the waist, was found a little further along the station street, in front of a small white store, where metal and plastic windows were sold. I saw pictures of these bodies, as well as dozens of photographers crowding around them, and tried to imagine this scene, looking at a peaceful street, cars, pedestrians, large advertising shields, wrapped up and have long lost their relevance, offering places in the future of the residential complex “continent paradise” and plots with townshouses, a small cottage area of 100 squares meters. But a man of about fifty distracted me, who, crossing the intersection on an electric scooter, could not resist and flew into the bushes that bordered the fence under the shields, but immediately rose with a scratched face and, before I managed to take a step in his direction, drove his scooter further. I crossed the street and went to the place where he fell. A fence of old and gray naked boards, which served as the southeastern angle of the intersection, surrounded the garden full of beautiful apple trees and sprouts of corn; Through the cracks in the fence, a small old house made of yellow brick was visible. According to the New York Times, two sisters were killed here. I knocked on the gate; No one responded, and I knocked again, this time louder. Finally, a woman left the house and, without opening, asked what I needed. I explained through the gate to her who we are. Having opened her, she measured me with a look, barked: “Enough with us conversations with journalists!” -and slammed the gate in front of my nose before I managed to utter the words that nevertheless broke from my lips: “I understand you perfectly, madam.” Can I compare the murders in Bucha in 2022 and in Babi Yar in 1941? We asked Jonathan Littlela the main questions about his book “An uncomfortable place”, which was published at the Medusa publishing house. You can buy it! Is it possible to compare the killings in Buch in 2022 and in Babi Yar in 1941? We asked Jonathan Littlela the main questions about his book “An uncomfortable place”, which was published at the Medusa publishing house. You can buy it! 88. This was not very inspired, but it was necessary to move on. On the other side of the street, Antoine photographed wilted flowers lying on the sidewalk on a square piece of fabric with traditional floral patterns pressed to the ground with pebbles. Another completely wounded bouquet lay at a green fence on a low attack on the corner. He must have been put here in memory of someone who died, but about whom? Obviously, the victim was a road to someone, because when I returned here in September, there were flowers again, this time relatively fresh, a bouquet of red, purple and pink cloves with small orange flowers, stood in half a plastic bottle of mineral water, next to the same piece of fabric, soaked and rolled up on a concrete attack. Antoine and I looked around, but did not see anyone. From the Yablonskaya side, a gate was discovered in a green fence, on which there was no noticeable number. I hesitated, but then knocked. No one answered. 89. Over the past months, many reports, articles and documentary films appeared, the authors of which tried to restore the picture of what happened at the intersection of station and Yablonskaya streets. The most detailed of them is a short film shot by The New York Times, which gained access to many videos made by surveillance cameras and Ukrainian drones. On March 5, the units of the 234th landing and nesting regiment, the very one that was very battered on Vokzalnaya Street on February 27, were transferred along Yablonskaya Street from the first base, created two days earlier to the west of it, to Station Street to organize a new base right in front of the intersection, a little north, on Tvobrynaya Street. Discouraged by the losses that they suffered on the 27th, the soldiers were moving carefully, placing snipers and two troops of the landing of the landing a little without reaching the intersection, in front of the house number 215 on Yablonskaya Street. They were watched by Ukrainian drones. A senior officer arrives with a radio operator and a guard. BMD begin to shell Yablonskaya Street east. At 11 o’clock on one of the videos, the first victim from among the civilians, lying near house number 221 on the other side of the intersection, appeared on one of the videos. This is a man who was traveling on a bicycle, Volodymyr Brovchenko, 68 years old. Around noon, the BMD shoots again and enters the blue minibus, located very close to the first corpse, in front of the house under construction. As a result, all four people who were inside were killed: the driver of Zhanna Kamenev, 37 years old, a volunteer who evacuated acquaintances from Buchi, her neighbor Maria Ilchuk, 69 years old, Tamila Mikhenko, 52 years old, and her 14-year-old daughter Anna. Their charred remains were still in the back of the minibus a month later, when they were found by Ukrainian investigators. But at 12:04 on the day of their death, the car and the body of Brovchenko were already secretly photographed by the local resident Viktor Shatyl, who was hiding in the attic of his house number 344. In another photograph taken at 12:46, the sixth victim was visible next to the burning van-61-year-old Myhailo Kovalenko. At the intersection, a Russian officer, approaching the hosts of the BMD fire, watches what is happening. At the same time, the drone removes, as a woman from the side of Irpen, a woman is slowly traveling on a bicycle, which she took for a while to meet her husband. At the intersection, a woman, 52-year-old Iryna Filkina, gets off the bicycle and turns around the corner towards the Russians. At that moment, when the commander leaves the frame to return to the tap, the second BMD opens the fire, and Iryna Filkina dies in place. A woman on a bicycle with a torn leg found there on April 3, is she. On that day, the photographer of Reuters agency Zhra Genemer took her left hand closely, half decomposed and smeared with mud. The nails were still perfectly painted: on four fingers-in a proud bright red color, and on the ring finger-in a pale pink, with an ace of the peak. Cosmetologist Anastasia Subacheva, who made this manicure shortly before her death, has survived and is now in Vilnius in the status of refugees. 90. Filkin was killed near the beautiful white three -story building number 342 on Yablonskaya Street, where Volodymyr Abramov, a former liquidator of the Chernobyl NPP; The neighboring part of the house belonged to his daughter Iryna Abramova and her husband Olega Abramova. Soon after the murder of Filkina, Russian troops opened fire at the house of Volodymyr Abramov, he caught fire. Oleg shouted that they were civilians, and asked people to cease fire behind the fence. The soldiers entered the yard and ordered them to go out with their hands with their hands. In an interview that Iryna Abramova gave Reuters about the same time when we walked around her house, she called the soldier Chechens, dressed in a sand -colored shape and nobox boots, which apparently indicates that they returned from Syria; The New York Times, in turn, identified them as paratroopers from the 234th regiment. One soldier constantly asked Iryn where the Nazis were hiding: “They accused us of killing people in the Donbass,” she told the representative of Human Rights Watch in April. “They accused us of the murder of“ Berkutovites ”(police officers from the elite unit responsible for the murder on the Kiev Maidan in February 2014), they said that we were to blame and we must be punished.” While the soldier was interrogated by Iryn, the other three ordered Volodymyr and Olega to put out the fire, which they could not do, and then dragged them into the corner of the courtyard. There they forced Oleg to remove the shirt and brought him out into the street. Volodymyr begged them to return Oleg to help him extinguish the fire, but he heard Oleg’s cry: “Do not touch me.” And then a soldier entered the yard and said: “He will not return.” Iryna jumped out into the street – her husband was shot at the temple point blank, and she rushed to the body with a cry: “Kill me, kill me too!” The soldiers did not kill her. “Oleag lay down on the ground down,” she told Human Rights Watch, “blood still whipped from his left ear. There was no right side of the face, pieces of brain and blood flowed out of the wound. ” A few meters from them stood soldiers and drank water calmly. They watched what was happening in the theater. Going out into the street, Iryna also saw the body of Filkina, lying right behind the gate, next to the concrete pillar, a fallen explosion. One soldier asked Volodymyr: “Is this your daughter?” – “Yes.” – “Take her and fail her. We will do the strip here. ” The house burned to the ground. Oleag remained lying there, the same body naked to the waist in front of a small white store; After the liberation of Iryna, she allowed to photograph herself next to her husband’s corpse. At that time, a sign with a number and the old Soviet name Yablonskaya Street – 342 Street still hung on the gates of her house – 342; If later I did not notice this tablet, then because someone took her out of the gate, I understood this from an interview with Volodymyr for The New York Times. So, most likely, it was Olegu who interested us flowers. 91. On that day, March 5, Russian troops in three hours killed at least eight people at this intersection. Some of the other dead, found there in April, were probably killed later. I only know that one of them was a 38-year-old construction worker Dmitro Shkirankov. He lived near Chernikhovo with his wife-Moldavka Marta and 10-year-old son and came to Buch in mid-February to work on one of the new buildings. On March 9, he managed to get through to Martha: “Many are killed here. But I am alive. ” On April 3, March saw the first photos of the corpses lying on Yablonskaya Street, and immediately recognized her husband. I do not know who were two other men. “There was much more rage inside me than spilled into photography” Antoine D`agat tried to take off the invisible in Ukraine – pain and fear. Here is his interview – about the war and working with Jonathan Littlel on the book “An uncomfortable place” “There was much more than a rage inside me than spilled in photography” Antoine Dʼagat tried to remove the invisible – pain and fear in Ukraine. Here is his interview – about the war and working with Jonathan Littlel on the book “An uncomfortable place” If you still have questions, write to us (email protected) (we read all the letters). (Tagstotranslate) News