Next to his body there is a bullet case. “He was shot in the head,” said a Ukrainian National Police official. There are no documents about the man, but authorities at the scene say that all indications are that he was another civilian victim in the war of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The body is one of many recently found in cities east of Kiev occupied by Russian forces. Borodianka was home to 13,000 people before the war, but most fled after the Russian invasion. What was left of the city, after heavy bombardment and catastrophic air raids, was then occupied by Russian forces, who entered on 28 February. Yuri Pomin was still in the city when the Russian attack began. “The scariest part was when their planes came. They were flying over our house and dropping bombs,” Pomin told CNN. Today, the 33-year-old is cleaning his apartment on the fourth floor. The multi-storey building next to it was leveled by a Russian blow and transports what is left of its belongings to another house outside the city. “I can not stay here,” he said. “It is not safe”. The Russian occupation for a month left a devastating mark on the city. Not only was it almost completely destroyed by large-scale attacks – with the buildings reduced to mere piles of rubble – but the Russian occupation forces subsequently used some of the houses as their personnel barracks. Kostychenko and her husband Oleksand fled when the bombing began, only to return after the city regained control of Ukraine on April 1. While their home was’s seemingly untouched by the heavy bombardment that destroyed Borodianka, it was looted inside. Clothes and discarded bottles scattered on the floor. They found their pet bird dead in its cage. “Alcohol is everywhere; empty bottles in the hallway, under things,” said the 44-year-old. “They (the Russians) smoked a lot, put out cigarettes on the table. They used the bed linen as their own.” Most of the furniture was either damaged or damaged, as was their television. “They did what they wanted,” Kostychenko said. “Our jewels have been removed. They are nothing but looters.” The nearby shops have been looted, their windows have been broken and the contents have either been stolen or thrown on the floors. The letter “V”, an abbreviation of Vostok (meaning “sunrise” in Russian) – and a symbol used by the Eastern Military District of Russia in conjunction with the letter “Z”, an emblem for the so-called “special military operation” Of Moscow – – painted on buildings, vehicles and checkpoints. The local unemployment office and the town hall were fortified and turned into a headquarters for the Russian troops stationed in the city. Both were also covered in V. Borodianka was a springboard for Russian units as they advanced on Kyiv through suburbs such as Bucha and Irpin. They faced strong resistance from Ukrainian forces and were forced to retreat. Remains of damaged Russian material in dozens of cities and towns around the capital, as well as fox holes and artillery positions remained almost untouched. Authorities have imposed a curfew in the entire Kiev region until April 7, urging residents to stay indoors while conducting demining operations. Moscow has denied that it targeted civilians, but volunteers are working with police to retrieve the bodies of the dead and leave them to rot in the countryside.
“We are gathering people who have been shot by the Russians. Civilians who have been tortured. We have been working for two days now,” said Hennadiy Avramenko, 45. CNN watched Avramenko and his colleague remove the body of a 44-year-old Ukrainian man from a car. He was shot in the heart while driving, with his car falling into a ditch next to the road. “Psychologically, it’s difficult,” Avramenko said. “The worst thing is that we do not find soldiers, just innocent people. “They were shot for no reason,” he added. Volunteers receive two extra corpses in one hour. One of them was the charred corpse of a man who was hit by artillery, the other was an elderly man who was shot while riding his bicycle. “(Monday) we received seven people and (by noon on Tuesday) we are already at six,” Avramenko said.
In and around Borodianka, authorities are only now beginning to comb the remains of most of the buildings, knowing that they will continue to find corpses as they do. Despite the withdrawal of Putin’s army from their city, Borodyanka residents fear that the devastation they have sustained will last for months, if not years.