In a Kyiv Suburb,‘They Shot Everyone They Saw.’

BUCHA, Ukraine — When a column of Russian tanks drove into the Kyiv suburb of Bucha within the first days of the conflict, Tetiana Pomazanko thought they held Ukrainian troopers and went out to her entrance gate to see.

However the troops opened hearth on Ms. Pomazanko, 56. Bullets ripped by the picket gate and fence round her home, killing her immediately. Her physique nonetheless lay within the backyard on Sunday, the place her 76-year-old mom had coated her as finest she might with plastic sheeting and picket boards.

“They have been driving up the road,” mentioned her mom, Antonina Pomazanko. “She thought they have been ours.”

Ms. Pomazanko’s killing is only one of scores being uncovered days after Russian troops withdrew from the outlying suburbs of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, after weeks of fierce combating. On Sunday, Ukrainians have been nonetheless discovering the useless in yards and on the roads amid mounting proof that civilians had been killed purposely and indiscriminately.

Serhiy Kaplishny is a coroner in Bucha who labored there from Feb. 24, the day of the invasion, till March 10, when he fled. He returned to Bucha on Saturday. He mentioned that, to this point, his group had collected greater than 100 our bodies throughout and after the combating and the Russian occupation.

Mr. Kaplishny mentioned that earlier than he left Bucha — as back-and-forth battles raged after which the Russian Military established management — he had buried 57 our bodies in a cemetery. Fifteen of these individuals had died of pure causes, the remainder from gunshot wounds, together with point-blank pictures, or from shrapnel. Three of the our bodies have been these of Ukrainian troopers, he mentioned.

Earlier than leaving city in March, he mentioned, he had organized for a neighborhood backhoe operator to dig a mass grave within the yard of an Orthodox church. With out electrical energy for refrigeration, the morgue had turn out to be insupportable, and one other resolution was wanted. “It was a horror,” he mentioned.

After he left, the mass grave stuffed up with about 40 our bodies, he mentioned, of people that died throughout the Russian occupation. Native coroners from his workplace who stayed within the city had collected a few of these our bodies, he mentioned.

On a go to on Sunday to the mass grave — a few dozen yards lengthy and two yards huge — a pile of excavated filth lay close by to pile onto our bodies. In a single nook, two pairs of footwear and an arm protruded from a skinny layer of filth, and in one other, a hand caught out. On high of the pile, a half-dozen black physique luggage had been tipped into the pit.

By the top of the day, again on the town, he mentioned that he had picked up about 30 extra our bodies in a white van. 13 of them have been males whose arms had been tied and who had been shot at shut vary within the head. He mentioned he didn’t know the circumstances of their deaths however believed, primarily based on their apparently current deaths, that they have been prisoners killed earlier than the Russian Military withdrew.

“They have been civilians,” Mr. Kaplishny mentioned, displaying cellphone photos of useless males in civilian garments with their arms sure behind their backs and in a single case within the entrance.

Within the pictures, eight our bodies with arms sure lay in a courtyard of a home and 5 in a basement, he mentioned. “Look, that one was shot within the eye,” Mr. Kaplishny mentioned.

The careless taking pictures of Ms. Pomazanko, at 10 a.m. on Feb. 27, was one of many first actions of Russian troops in Bucha.

After her mom coated her daughter’s physique, she mentioned, “I buried her a bit within the night time.”

“There was a lot shelling, I didn’t know what to do,” she added.

Within the yard on Sunday, the useless lady’s toes, in woolen socks and galoshes, poked out beneath the boards, beside the trail the place she had stood.

Svitlana Munich, a former classmate of the useless lady, stood close by in tears. “They shot everybody they noticed,” she mentioned of the Russians. “They shot the gasoline pipe, too, and her mom was in the home.”

The Russian troops additionally suffered horrible casualties that very first day, as they drove farther into city.

A primary thoroughfare in Bucha — Vokzalnaya, or Station Road — was unpassable on Sunday, strewn with destroyed Russian tanks and armored autos, downed cables and burned particles. Scores of Russian troopers have been killed, residents mentioned, when the column of Russian tanks got here beneath a drone assault.

A number of of the homes on one facet of the road caught hearth, however a number of the Russian troopers who survived the blast escaped into individuals’s yards, residents mentioned. Two our bodies within the backyard of 1 home farther up the road have been most likely these of Russian troopers, mentioned Kostiantyn Momotov, who lived close by.

The boys had forged off their military uniforms and boots, he mentioned, pointing to a camouflage jacket on the bottom, and placed on civilian garments, probably to keep away from seize, he mentioned. Each males had been shot within the head.

After the drone assault on the column, it took per week earlier than Russian reinforcements arrived on March 4 and took management of Bucha, a number of residents mentioned. After that, the Russians parked their tanks on the primary intersections and in individuals’s yards and performed house-to-house searches, they mentioned.

Russian troops commandeered Iryna and Roman Davidovych’s home, a big three-story villa at one of many primary intersections, and parked armored autos on every nook of the yard. The Russian troopers seized their telephones and computer systems, they mentioned, and took over the home, pulling mattresses from the beds and laying them on the ground of the primary lounge. Ousted, the Davidovychs stayed within the cellar.

“We have been sitting within the cellar,” Mr. Davidovych mentioned. “Shells have been flying and bombs.”

“I’ve lots of Russian mates, however these males weren’t good,” Ms. Davidovych mentioned. A few of the males have been of their 40s and appeared skilled troopers, she mentioned. They sat within the upstairs rooms and fired from the home windows on the streets under, she mentioned, opening the window to point out.

On the intersection beside the home, a physique in vivid blue fleece lay hunched over the steering wheel of a crushed automotive. It was not clear how the particular person had died, however the automotive appeared to have been smushed by an armored car.

“They have been taking pictures, taking pictures,” Ms. Davidovych mentioned. “They usually made a horrible mess and stole issues.” Principally the troopers took socks and T-shirts, she mentioned. However her husband confirmed the place that they had pulled two safes into the yard with their tanks and damaged them open.

There have been younger troopers, too, Ms. Davidovych mentioned. One, known as Vanya, was solely 19 and instructed them he dreamed of being wounded and despatched dwelling.

“He understood they have been occupiers,” she mentioned.

Galina Levitskaya, 60, a retired instructor, mentioned she had no unfavorable experiences with the enlisted Russian troopers who patrolled the city. It was her impression, she mentioned, that that they had orders to be well mannered and to share their meal rations, which they did. “They helped us carry luggage,” she mentioned.

A unit of ethnic Chechen fighters, who have been bearded and wore black uniforms, had searched door to door, she mentioned. If an occupant opened the door, she mentioned, the fighters typically simply looked for weapons and left. If no one opened the door, she mentioned, they’d kick it in to go looking.

Others fared far worse. Vitaly Sinadin, a 45-year-old sculptor who was hobbling down a avenue on Sunday afternoon, mentioned he had been tied to a metallic pole for 2 days in a cinderblock home utilized by Russian forces as a base.

“They beat me, asking, ‘The place are the Ukrainian troopers?’ and ‘Who on the town is within the Territorial Protection Power?’” — a reference to the volunteer models that sprang up within the first days of the Russian invasion. A sprawling red-and-black bruise masking his thighs and again was constant along with his account of in depth beatings.

On Sunday afternoon, on a highway main west out of Bucha, a person lay useless on his again, his inexperienced bicycle toppled beside him. Shot by the face, he bore a big gap at the back of his cranium.

Farther alongside that highway — in a clearing in a pine forest on the sting of the village of Dmytrivka — the police had earlier within the day pulled the physique of a Russian soldier, his face and uniform burned, from the turret of a blown-up tank. His paperwork confirmed he was 22, and from Buratyia in jap Siberia.

By late afternoon, the destroyed tanks have been dusted by a snowstorm that blew over Kyiv. On this silent, eerie scene, the soldier’s physique nonetheless lay unrecovered.