Roadside burial of worker shot in the head in Bucha, Ukraine

BUCHA, Ukraine, April 5 (Reuters) – (Editor’s note: This story contains graphic descriptions)

Sobbing uncontrollably, Serhii Lahovskyi huddles against the shrouded corpse of his childhood best friend, who disappeared when Russian troops occupied the Ukrainian town of Bucha, near kyiv, and found him shot in the head and lying in the hole. of a ladder.

With the worker’s eyes cloudy and half-closed, streaks of black and crimson blood embedded in his face and snaking to his lips from an exit wound that split his skull, Igor Litvinenko had been shot in the mouth at close range. He was found by local residents just days before his 30th birthday.

Dried clots of blood filled his nostrils. And her torso was covered in bright red welts, which Lahovskyi believes were from a beating. He was thrown out along with another man who was found mutilated. His wife and other residents said the man who was mutilated had been taken prisoner by Russian troops who invaded Ukraine.

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Litvinenko had been visiting his mother to bring her food when he disappeared.

“Why did these animals shoot him like that?” Lahovskyi said Tuesday, eyes wide and bloodshot, gesturing with his hand to say they had been best friends since they had the knee. “This is not Russia, this is a monster.”

“Simply point blank. Why is it necessary? Tell me, please.”

He and other residents at a housing complex in the devastated town of Bucha, where Reuters has found a trail of what authorities say are extrajudicial killings since Russian troops withdrew last week, grabbed shovels and dug a grave shortly after. deep in a grass verge by a block of flats.

They then used a mat to transport the remains, placing it in the trench, folding it over it and covering it with wooden boards, before shoveling dirt on top.

Panting heavily after digging the grave, shaking his head in dismay, local locksmith and odd-job man Urii Churachenko bent down and placed two cigarettes in the dirt as a token for his friend.

“I’ve known him since I was a child,” he said. “We’ve been through it all together. He’s our colleague, our brother in arms. May they burn in hell. That’s it.”

Reuters has seen at least four victims shot in the head in Bucha, one with his hands tied behind his back. Read more

Residents have recounted cases of several others killed, some shot in the eyes and one apparently beaten to death and mutilated. Read more

Authorities say they have found more than 300 dead so far.

Ukrainian officials say Russia has committed genocide and have called for an investigation by the International Criminal Court. Read more

The Kremlin dismisses the accusations as propaganda. Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, told the Security Council on Tuesday that Russian troops are not targeting civilians, dismissing allegations of abuse as lies. He said that while Bucha was under Russian control “not a single civilian suffered any kind of violence.”

In Bucha, Liudmyla Verhinska wept as she recounted how she found her 32-year-old son shot in the eye. He worked in the counter-terrorism unit and is now buried in another small patch of grass near the housing complex.

“He went alone to take out the garbage and they shot him. After seven days, I found it,” she said. “And today I found his friend… What else to tell you?”

Information from Simon Gardner; Additional reporting by Zohra Bensemra and Ivan Lubysh-Kirdey; Edited by Silvia Aloisi and Lisa Shumaker

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