How is life in Butscha?

The Ukrainian baker Yaroslav Burkivskyj (28) recently offered his bread in a Russian weapon chest. Enemy soldiers left mountains of containers behind when they fled the outskirts of the capital Kiev more than six months ago.

Now one of the boxes is in Burkivskyj’s cottage on the outskirts of the city of Bucha. It is made of wood, painted military green and about a meter long. It’s high enough to fit dozens of loaves of bread and deep enough to stick out a bit at the top and attract customers. A perfect storage container, says Burkivskyj. “Of course we would have loved to do without it.”

Symbol for the worst war crimes

Bucha and other suburbs of Kiev were captured by Russian troops in the early days of the war at the end of February and occupied for about a month. When the Russians finally withdrew toward eastern Ukraine in the absence of military success, hundreds of civilians were found dead in the area — some in the middle of the road. Photos of corpses showing signs of torture and their hands tied behind their backs went viral in late March. And even if many other atrocities have come to light since then, in the Russian war of aggression that has been going on for more than eight months, hardly any other Ukrainian place has become such a symbol of the most serious war crimes as Bucha.

Russian soldiers came to an acquaintance’s house and pointed a gun at him, Burkivskyj’s baker colleague Viktor Kovalchuk said. “Now we’ll shoot you,” they said. One of them actually fired — but only at the cap on the acquaintance’s head, Kovalchuk says. The Russians said it was a “joke” and left. “Things like that have happened here,” Kovalchuk says. There are fresh oatmeal cookies. Outside it is cool and rainy, but thanks to the stove it is comfortably warm in the hut. Customers keep coming.

In the first weeks after the occupation, the small bakery with the blue shutters became a place where the survivors gathered. Burkivskyj brought flour from their own pantries, Burkivskyj recalls. It was used to bake bread for everyone. Who could, paid. The ones who couldn’t get it for free. “In this terrible time, people have understood that they are not alone in this world. That has changed a bit,” says the 28-year-old.

90 percent of the population fled

The war also changed the life of Dmytro Hapchenko (45), the head of the city government. When more than 90 percent of the approximately 50,000 residents of Butscha and the surrounding area fled in March, the 45-year-old stayed on out of devotion to those who were still there. Meanwhile, about 30,000 people are said to have returned, but not the wife of Hapchenko and their children, who have reached Israel and want to wait there for the end of the war, which is currently unforeseeable. “It’s hard,” he says.

Hapchenko has light gray hair, he looks tired and combative at the same time. Dressed in a dark green outdoor jacket and sturdy walking shoes, he has just returned from a wooded area where the body of a missing resident was recently found. Now there, together with other helpers, he is looking for traces that allow conclusions to be drawn about the identity of the Russian soldiers – and other graves. Hapchenko shows the picture of a hole in the ground on his mobile phone. It is documentary work that is also intended to expedite current international investigation and official recognition of the atrocities as war crimes.

He does this work on a voluntary basis. He was also kidnapped by the occupying forces in March and held for about a day. His release was probably pure luck, he says. Haptschenko says of the dead in the forest: “It could have been me too.” He pauses for a moment, then says, “If it had been like this, I wish they’d find me now.”

Air Alert loses shock effect

A few meters away is a large white church with golden domes that stand out against the gray sky on this autumn day. During the occupation, dead residents were temporarily buried in a mass grave on the church grounds because the path to the cemetery was blocked. They have since been reburied. He knew some of them personally, Hapchenko says, and the parents, children and friends of others.

An air raid siren sounds outside – Russian troops have been attacking Kiev and the surrounding area en masse for a few days with rockets and combat drones. The interview continues anyway. It seems that anyone who has experienced what Haptschenko has experienced will no longer be upset by a little siren blaring.

He shows more pictures on his mobile phone. “You were shot here in the middle of the street” – an elderly woman’s body appears on the phone screen. “She was wearing a white bandage on her upper arm, see?” Hapchenko zooms in on the dead body. “She wanted to make it clear that she was a civilian.”

Another resident was shot dead by Russian soldiers at a checkpoint as she tried to leave the city – through the open window while driving her car. Another photo, another corpse. Hapchenko keeps swiping on his cell phone, there seems to be no end to it.

In total, authorities in Butscha have so far registered more than 460 dead residents, but fear many more victims. Despite the horror, life in the small town continues today. Craftsmen repaint freshly repaired house facades. Cafes are open, people are walking their dogs, children are running around the city park. Internally, however, many people are still in a “psychological state of stress,” Haptschenko says.

His cell phone keeps ringing. It is a private telephone, service device and municipal emergency center in one. People still contact him who are missing relatives. Some eventually turn up alive in Russian captivity, others dead in the forests of Butscha. According to Hapchenko, there is still no trace of more than 70 fellow citizens. (SDA)