The commander – Oleg Krikunov, 33 – was better known to his troops and victims as de guerre Kaluga. The atrocities he allegedly committed and which he presided over for a month in a small village in Ukraine have been documented by officials investigating the atrocities committed by Moscow troops, who have made him a high priority in the list of wanted soldiers. Ukrainian prosecutors have been flooded with evidence of Russian war crimes. The scale of the abuses was so great and the crimes so outrageous, that they have already amassed hundreds of files, named dozens of suspects and launched a first successful prosecution. Since the beginning of the war, the Guardian has documented crimes against civilians, including torture, murder and sexual assault, collecting first-hand testimonies from survivors and witnesses and cross-referencing them with information released by prosecutors. Together they give an idea of how violence and abuse have been an integral part of the Russian campaign from its earliest days. Photographs released by prosecutors accused of killing and torturing civilians in a village north of Kiev, including Belarusians Sergey Vladimirovich Sazanov (twice in center-right and bottom left) and Alexander Alexandrovich Stupnitsky (center in the center) and their colleague mercenary Wagner Sergey Sergeevich Sazonov (top right). Top left: Oleg Krikunov, 33, better known to his troops and victims as de guerre Kaluga. Photos of Russian soldiers accused of the massacre committed in the northern part of Kiev. At least four of them are members of Russia’s 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade, a unit based in the Khabarovsk region off the Pacific coast of Russia’s Far East that is said to have killed hundreds of civilians in Bucha.
Motyzhyn torture camp
On April 29, Guardian reporters spoke with Oleh Bondarenko, one of only three men to survive the Kaluga torture camp in Motyzhyn. Bodarenko said he had been beaten and allowed to die by Russian soldiers. He lost several teeth from Russian attacks, his torso is full of scars and he may have suffered permanent damage to his spine. In an interview in late April, he was told how the Russian squad led him blindfolded in a compound where soldiers had set up a gloomy routine for their captives. Every day the citizens were badly beaten, their hands twisted and broken. Then, as the time approached when they were to be killed, they were shot in the arms or knees to cause maximum pain, then shot again in the stomach before finally being killed by a bullet to the back of the head. Oleh Bondarenko at the rehabilitation center in Motyzhyn where he works as a consultant. Bondarenko, one of only three men to survive the Kaluga torture camp in Motyzhyn. Bodarenko said he had been beaten, tortured and allowed to die by Russian soldiers. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Guardian Bodarenko was locked up for two days in a concrete pipe submerged in the ground that served as a water tank, large enough to keep a man bent over in a kind of shack. While being held captive in the compound, Bodarenko said he could hear soldiers torturing one of the civilians for an hour and a half. “I prayed they would take him faster,” he said. Underground water storage tank and well outside Motyzhyn, in the Kiev region, where Oleh Bondarenko was placed by Russian forces after torture. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The GuardianMap showing the location of the torture camp in Motyzhyn Citizens were buried in mass graves around the camp. There, investigators found the body of Olga Petrivna, the beloved head of Motizin village council, along with her husband and son. Petrivna had chosen to stay in the city and coordinate aid and territorial defense when the Russians arrived. A large billboard of Olga Petrivna with her husband and son marks the entrance to the village of Motyzhyn. The message reads: “Eternal respect from the people of Motyzhyn.” Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Guardian
Mass graves were discovered
In the villages of Bucha, Hostomel and Borodyanka, which were occupied by Russian troops for about a month, Ukrainian investigators found dozens of mass graves where the bodies of civilians had been buried, tortured and killed. Ever since the Russians left the area, a group of young volunteers has been working tirelessly to exhume the bodies and send them to medical examiners who are collecting evidence of crimes committed by Russian troops. In the forest on the side of the road near Borodyanka, 40 miles from Kyiv, police were overseeing the exhumation of two men buried next to what locals say was a Russian military checkpoint. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Guardian In the villages of Bucha, Hostomel and Borodyanka, which had been occupied by Russian troops for about a month, Ukrainian investigators found dozens of mass graves where civilian bodies had been buried, tortured and killed. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Guardian In a forest on the side of the road near Borodyanka, 40 miles from Kyiv, police found the bodies of two men buried next to a Russian military checkpoint, locals say. One was a retired man whose head had been cut off and has not yet been found. Both bodies were twisted and tangled and looked as if their limbs had been broken in many places. The son of the beheaded man, Serhiy Kubitsky, was there to watch the exhumation and give a statement to the police. He and his family had left the village for the safety of western Ukraine when the war broke out, but his father did not want to leave. “I did not believe it was him when I was told that,” Kubitsky said. He said his neighbors found his father’s body in the woods near the Russian checkpoint on March 17 and buried him on the spot. Neighbors then returned to the grave to dig it under police surveillance. In Borodyanka, near the local hospital, investigators found the body of a 14-year-old girl along with that of her father and another man. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Guardian In Borodyanka, a few meters from the local hospital, investigators found the body of a 14-year-old girl along with that of her father and another man. According to witnesses, the girl and her father were trying to escape from the city by car, but the Russians had been ordered to shoot any vehicle trying to leave. The father died instantly when the bullets penetrated the car. His daughter, according to testimonies, passed away a few hours later. They were buried in a mass grave less than a minute away. A woman walks in a burnt car graveyard in Irpin. The owners of these cars could not leave the city. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The GuardianCivilian cars in Irpin filled with bullet holes. Due to the constant bombardment, civilians were buried in makeshift cemeteries around the cities and the location of their graves was later reported to the police. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Guardian The Guardian has photographed dozens of civilian cars in cities north of Kiev, such as Borodyanka, filled with bullet holes as citizens tried to flee. The constant bombardment meant that they were buried in makeshift cemeteries around the cities and the location of their graves was later reported to the police. Vladyslav Perovskyi, a Ukrainian medical examiner who has performed dozens of autopsies on people from Bucha, Irpin and Borodyanka, said the process of identifying the people was complicated by the state of decomposition of the bodies found in the mass graves and the high level of barbarism. exercised on the victims, even after their murder. It tells of people who were killed and then crushed by tanks. “There are many burnt and deformed corpses that are simply impossible to identify,” he said. “The face could be torn to pieces. You can not combine it again. “Sometimes, there is no head at all.” A morgue in the Kiev region full of bags. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Guardian At the beginning of March, the local morgues in Kiev had no more space for the dead, who arrived every day by twelve in facilities intended for 30, so the corpses were stacked in refrigerated trucks. In one, an elderly couple in tears described their son to the men standing inside. He served in the political resistance, they said, and betrayed Russian soldiers who had occupied their city and were chasing Ukrainian fighters and ex-soldiers who had taken part in the Donbas war. The Russians arrested him, tortured him, broke his arms and legs and put a plastic bag on his head. He was then shot and thrown on the side of the road. The moment a mother recognized her son’s body in a truck full of unknown corpses from the morgue. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Guardian
Rape and sexual assault
Late in April, medical examiners told the Guardian that they had found evidence that some women had been raped before being killed by Russian forces. “We already have some cases that suggest these women were raped before being shot to death,” Perovskyi said. “We can not give further details as my colleagues are still collecting the data and we still have hundreds of bodies to be examined,” he said. Women across Ukraine are struggling with the aftermath of sexual violence perpetrated by Russian soldiers. As Russian troops withdrew from the cities and suburbs around the capital to re-focus the fighting effort in eastern Ukraine, women and girls appeared to speak out about the atrocities they had suffered. Mass rapes, gun attacks and child rapes are among the bleak testimonies gathered by investigators. At least two men on a list of Russian war criminals …
