There was no sign of the soldiers in the column. In a video showing the destruction, a man could be heard murmuring, “I wish you all burn in hell.”
But this Ukrainian victory was to be short-lived; A month-long occupation of Bucha by Russian forces followed.
In recent days Moscow has claimed – without evidence – that the Bucha atrocities were staged – it was “fake” and part of a “planned media campaign”.
But witnesses speaking to CNN said the slaughter in the city began weeks ago.
And the devastation there bears similarities to Russia’s playbook in other cities in Ukraine, where officials say civilian infrastructure has been attacked — with power outages, water cut off and communications towers damaged — making it harder for local residents to hold their own against Russian forces . But Ukraine did not give up.
There have also been reports of looting, enforced disappearances and evidence of the indiscriminate killing of civilians since the beginning of the war.
terror in the street
Bucha – once a magnet for young families thanks to its affordable houses, green spaces and good schools – and other nearby areas turned into a living nightmare in March as Russian troops stormed the region.
Residents there tell elusive tales of ransacked homes, senseless murders, and failed escapes along Kiev’s Zhytomyr Highway—now a graveyard for wrecked tanks and burned-out cars.
In Bucha, houses with pent roofs crumbled under the force of Russian artillery attacks.
Local residents say they had no choice but to turn their vegetable patches and front yards into makeshift graves as the presence of Russian forces made it impossible to reach the morgue or local cemetery.
Anna Bilous, 48, had lived in Bucha for eight years before Russian troops arrived. She has been hiding in her home with her husband and two sons, but when the power went out and the pipes ran dry on March 4, it became clear they had to leave, she told CNN.
They decided that on March 9, Bilous and her two sons would flee on foot to the nearby suburb of Irpin, while her husband stayed behind to look after the family’s elderly neighbors.
The trio took back roads to avoid the Russian soldiers, but as they turned onto Yablunska Street, the family was stunned to find dead bodies strewn along the road – including a lifeless man who had collapsed under a bicycle.
Bilous believes the man’s body remained there for nearly a month until he and about 20 other civilians were photographed last weekend for the world to see.
The mayor of Bucha has described her death as an execution.
Bilous’ report and satellite images taken on March 18 and shared by Maxar Technologies show the bodies had lain on the streets for weeks as the city was under Russian control – Russia held Bucha until March 31.
On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov continued to deny allegations of brutal killings of civilians in Bucha, saying the claims were not only “baseless, but a well-staged tragic show” and “a fake to try to trick the Russians.” denigrate the army.”
reports of executions
About a mile away, at a sanatorium on Vokzal’na Street, Ukrainian officials on Monday ushered journalists into a cold basement where the contorted and bloodied bodies of five men lay in an advanced state of decay.
Some of those in this dimly lit room had worn kneecaps. Others, whose arms were tied behind their backs, were shot multiple times. Shell casings lay on the floor.
Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said it was a gruesome demonstration of torture and execution by Russian soldiers. CNN cannot independently verify its claim.
The men were killed sometime in the past three weeks, officials say. Their bodies have not yet been identified as no personal documents have been found.
In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry has denied anyone was injured.
“Considering that the troops left town on March 30th, where was the footage for four days? Their absence only confirms the fake.”
Officials say Russian troops were stationed at the sanatorium around the second week of March. Several foxholes, trenches and positions for armored vehicles are visible around the site. leftover Russian rations were left nearby.
Soldiers have daubed the outside walls of the facility with the letter “V,” a symbol of Russia’s Eastern Military District, used interchangeably with the letter “Z” as an emblem for Russia’s “military special operation.”
The gruesome scene proved too much for Vladislav Minchenko, who vomited after volunteering to help remove the bodies from the basement on Monday.
“We didn’t learn that in school,” says Minchenko, 44, who worked as a painter before the war. Minchenko held up his hands and told CNN the death toll he had dealt with since the conflict began was in the “hundreds – not tens – hundreds.”
Hasty burials in mass graves
Shelling, live fire and trigger-happy Russian soldiers made it too dangerous for those injured in the Bucha attack to seek treatment at the local hospital in the center of the city, according to local residents.
The local morgue in Bucha ran out of space as the death toll mounted in March; To deal with all the bodies, a tractor was brought in to dig a mass grave on the grounds of the Church of St. Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints, its abbot Andriy Galavin told CNN.
“There were too many dead and there was no way to bury them properly because getting to the cemetery was just unrealistic because of the shelling,” Galavin said.
There is also a lack of resources such as coffins since the main bridge connecting Bucha to Irpin was blown up early in the war, Galavin said.
This weekend, Kyiv regional police and residents believed the remains of at least 150 people were buried in the grave, but Bucha’s mayor said the death toll could be as high as 300. CNN has not been able to independently verify these claims.
Galavin returned to Bucha last week after the city was liberated; He said the plan is to exhume the bodies, identify them via DNA analysis and hopefully offer some comfort to relatives who are still searching for missing loved ones.
tip of the iceberg
The devastation in Bucha is just the tip of the iceberg, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy warned on Monday.
“In many villages of the liberated districts of Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the occupiers did things that local people had not seen even during the Nazi occupation 80 years ago,” President Zelenskyy said. “The occupiers are definitely responsible for this.”
A grisly example of callous indifference to human life was found in Motyzhyn, a village about 20 miles south of Bucha. Local mayor Olga Sucheko was discovered half-buried in a ditch alongside members of her family. Ukrainian officials said Saturday she was killed after being captured by Russian forces.
And Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk says 11 local mayors are being held by the Russians, which CNN cannot verify.
“Unfortunately, so far we have not been able to contact or free any other mayors in the city, and we don’t even know, we think some of them were killed,” she told CNN, promising the perpetrators would pay for their crimes against Ukraine.
“We will find them and kill them, and we will punish anyone who has killed our mayors, our journalists, our priests, our activists.”
As Ukrainian officials try to clear mines and booby traps left behind by retreating Russian troops, they fear the civilian casualty toll in Borodyanka, 14 miles west of Bucha, could be much higher.
Oksana Kostychenko and her husband Oleksandr returned to Borodyanka over the weekend after fleeing the area on February 27. They found that their house had been vandalized and looted by Russian soldiers.
The couple also found a dead man in their backyard. His arms were tied behind his back and his pants were pulled down.
“Alcohol is everywhere. Empty bottles in the hallway, under things,” Oksana said. “They smoked a lot, put cigarettes on the table… They lived here as they wanted.”
Anna Bilous and her sons made it out of Bucha on March 10th. But the fate of the dead man, whom they saw lying under a bicycle while fleeing, still haunts them.
“I feel like I and my sons could be in the same place as the man who died,” she said. “I feel the pain and sadness of all these lost people.”