How DNA samples can become a weapon in the fight against Putin’s war criminals

Butscha’s photos went around the world a year ago: A man lies on the street under his bicycle, of which he was apparently shot. Another, apparently returned from shopping, is buried with a tote bag beneath him, a third with his hands tied behind his back.

They are horrible images. Alone, François Heulard shows nothing. “We soldiers have to be able to handle complicated situations,” says the colonel of the French gendarmerie, head of the Institute for Criminal Investigation. The “Institut pour la recherche criminelle” (IRC), part of the French army, specializes in “complicated” missions.

Thanks to its international reputation, it was used in the 2004 Thailand tsunami, plane crashes in Africa and the Nice terrorist attack. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked to use the mobile DNA laboratory in Bucha, a suburb of Kiev, his counterpart Emmanuel Macron immediately agreed.

Nearly a year ago, Heulard drove 20 scientists and a convoy of a dozen vehicles to Bucha to collect evidence of the mass murder of the civilian population. In five weeks they examined 200 corpses, took fingerprints, bone and hair samples.

The mission was primarily to identify the deceased, but then also to determine the causes of death. “They were clear when there was a bullet hole,” explains Heulard at the IRC headquarters in Pontoise, northwest of Paris. “The caliber of the firearms, the ash of the bullet or the presence of powder residue were important.”

For example, conclusions can be drawn about the firing distance or the use of cluster bombs, which are prohibited under international law. “Their effect on a human body is characteristic,” explains Heulard. “But in our expertise we only describe the impact; the interpretation is the responsibility of the bailiffs. We are scientists, we only care about the objective facts.”

Tank shells on civilians

For example, a 30mm hole in the wall, the angle of the shot and a broken cup suggest that a young man in Bucha was doing the dishes when a Russian tank shell pierced the wall and torso of the civilian victim. But Heulard emphasizes that his report contains only facts. And nothing from Russian perpetrators. «We just record the data and report to the Kiev prosecutor’s office. She forwards it to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.”

Or the special court of Ukraine demanded by Zelensky? “It’s a political issue, we don’t have to worry about that,” says the IRC leader. He also does not comment on the question of whether Russian President Vladimir Putin belongs before an international court. “It is not our job. The judges are responsible for the perpetrators.”

The IRC gendarmes had plenty to do examining hundreds of bodies from the city’s morgue and mass graves. This too was complicated work: “The bodies that were dug up were in very, very bad condition. Some also bore marks of torture, of rape.” It was also tough for the IRC examiners, who are used to a lot – when the Germanwings plane crashed in the French Alps in 2015, they had to spend weeks assembling body parts.

Huge mental load

“In Butscha, the mental strain was also very high because of the war,” the gray-haired IRC boss recalls. Since many families wanted to identify the decomposing bodies, the French also took comparative DNA samples from the requesting relatives. That strengthened the human feeling. “When you get a packet of candy from families because they’ve identified a deceased person that they can finally bury, it’s really touching,” says the otherwise dry IRC boss.

In the research building in Pontoise, he prefers to show the mobile laboratory that was used in Butscha. It allows up to 45 DNA tests per day. A second laboratory in the form of a van is in use in Izjum. In this eastern Ukrainian city, which has since been liberated, Russian accomplices have also committed massacres and even killed fleeing families, including eleven children.

Given the horror, François Heulard is all the more impressed by the Ukrainian population: “At the beginning of our stay in Bucha, we worked under war conditions, not knowing whether we would be attacked ourselves. When our mission ended five weeks later, reconstruction of the city was in full swing; municipal workers cleaned the streets and even planted flowers.”

The IRC mobile lab is currently planning a third, still confidential, mission to Ukraine. The gendarmes are also on standby in case the Ukrainians recapture more cities in a spring offensive. “Who knows”, Colonel Heulard muses, “what else will come to light there”.