Violence that left hundreds of Ukrainian civilians beaten, tortured and executed wasn’t the work of rogue soldiers, an investigation by AP and PBS shows. It was strategic and organized brutality.
interactive experience and the documentary “Putin’s Attack on Ukraine: Documenting War Crimes,” on PBS.The map seized by Ukrainian forces is almost as tall as a man. It’s frayed, creased and deeply outdated — describing towns as they no longer exist. A single red line snakes down from Belarus, along the western flank of the Dnieper River, through Chernobyl and toward Zhuliany airport, in Kyiv.
The troops moving toward the capitol had been ordered to block and destroy “nationalist resistance,” according to the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank that has reviewed copies of Russia’s battle plans. Soldiers used lists compiled by Russian intelligence and conducted “zachistki” — cleansing operations — sweeping neighborhoods to identify and neutralize anyone who might pose a threat.
FILE - Police investigate the killing of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine on the outskirts of Kyiv, before bringing the corpses to a morgue, Wednesday, April 6, 2022. “We have the order not to take prisoners of war but to shoot them all dead directly,” a soldier nicknamed Lyonya said in a March 14 phone call.
Russian troops dug into the woods around Zdvyzhivka, building virtual cities that stretched for several kilometers beneath the tall pines and poplar trees. They left gaping trenches sized for tanks, semi-permanent bunkers reinforced with logs and sandbags, rough-hewn tables and benches. There was even a field sauna, photographs and intercepts show.
It seemed like tanks were parked in every yard, Tania said. Troops took over dozens of abandoned homes. Andrii Shkoliar lives on Tsentralna street with his extended family, a few houses down from the luxurious compound. On March 18, Shkoliar and his wife were walking nearby to a relative’s house when a dark-colored UAZ Patriot sped past, stopped abruptly and drove back to them.
Shkoliar peered through the back window of the SUV at a man slumped against the window, eyes bound with tape, his hands behind his back. Vitalii Chernysh was picked up that afternoon as he rode his bike through a field. Chernysh said soldiers found a photo of Russian military vehicles someone had sent him on the messaging app Viber on Feb. 25 and hauled him off with three other people, bound and blindfolded, to a nearby barn. It was below freezing, and none of the prisoners was dressed for the cold.
Photos taken shortly after his ordeal show large, livid bruises on the back of his swollen legs. Days later, Russia’s Ministry of Defense released a video of Chaiko pinning medals on soldiers near Zdvyzhivka. Raisa Kozyr, head of the village of Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine, speaks during an interview on July 27, 2022. On March 19, Ukrainians launched a precision strike, knocking out a Russian storehouse at an ostrich farm on Tsentralna, according to Kozyr. Russian troops sprang into action, searching door to door and checking documents. “We didn’t know what was happening around us,” she recalled. “What was happening in the woods. And we knew people were missing.
The next morning, he brought the village head, the village priest and others to the site. Three more bodies had appeared overnight. The blood was fresh. Some of them had their eyes and hands bound. Two seemed to be dressed in clothes that weren’t their own. In Ukraine, prosecutors say they don’t have proof Chaiko ordered specific crimes, but it is clear that atrocities were committed under his watch.
Days before the bodies of Voznenko and the others were found mutilated in the garden in Zdvyzhivka, two eyewitnesses spotted Chaiko again, about a kilometer down the road at his headquarters in the village. As top commander, Chaiko obviously “would have to be aware of what was happening near his headquarters located in the same village,” he said. “It’s only logical.
They say he was in Zdvyzhivka from March 20 until March 31, directing the assault on Kyiv — that is, at the same time the three men from Ozera were killed and Chernysh was tortured.The International Criminal Court has a better chance than Ukraine of extraditing, or capturing, Chaiko one day. It is currently the only international forum that can hold leaders criminally responsible for wartime atrocities. But it is not a simple task.
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