Stop War In Ukraine

Russia-Ukraine war: latest in pictures 📸⁠

1️⃣ A view of new rows of graves for people killed during Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at a cemetery in Irpin, Ukraine, April 18, 2022.⁠
📸 Reuters/ Zohra Bensemra
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2️⃣ Bodies are exhumed from a mass-grave in the grounds of the St. Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints church in the Ukrainian town of Bucha⁠
📸 Sergei Supinsky/ AFP⁠
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3️⃣ Service members of pro-Russian troops walk in the street during fighting in Mariupol⁠
📸 Reuters/ Alexander Ermochenko⁠
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4️⃣ Emergency workers carry the body of local resident Sergiy, 41, from his destroyed apartment, following an artillery attack in Kharkiv,⁠
📸 Reuters/ Alkis Konstantinidis⁠

5️⃣ A woman reacts as she hugs another woman outside a heavily damaged apartment block, following an artillery attack in Kharkiv⁠
📸 Reuters/ Alkis Konstantinidis ⁠

A mother killed by a sniper while walking with her family to fetch a thermos of tea. A woman held as a s*x slave, naked except for a fur coat and locked in a potato cellar before being executed. Two sisters dead in their home, their bodies left slumped on the floor for weeks.

Bucha is a landscape of horrors.

From the first day of the war, Feb. 24, civilians bore the brunt of the Russian assault on Bucha, a few miles west of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Russian special forces approaching on foot through the woods shot at cars on the road, and a column of armored vehicles fired on and killed a woman in her garden as they drove into the suburb.

But those early cruelties paled in comparison to what came after.

As the Russian advance on Kyiv stalled in the face of fierce resistance, civilians said, the enemy occupation of Bucha slid into a campaign of terror and revenge. When a defeated and demoralized Russian Army finally retreated, it left behind a grim tableau: bodies of dead civilians strewn on streets, in basements or in backyards, many with gunshot wounds to their heads, some with their hands tied behind their backs.

Reporters and photographers for The New York Times spent more than a week with city officials, coroners and scores of witnesses in Bucha, uncovering new details of execution-style atrocities against civilians.

The Times documented the bodies of almost three dozen people where they were killed — in their homes, in the woods, set on fire in a vacant parking lot — and learned the story behind many of their deaths. The Times also witnessed more than 100 body bags at a communal grave and the city’s cemetery.

The evidence suggests the Russians killed recklessly and sometimes sadistically, in part out of revenge.

Source

Mayor Olha Sukhenko took care of her village of Motyzhyn outside Kyiv for more than a decade, sprucing up public buildings, organizing concerts and settling disputes. ⁠
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During Russia’s invasion, she and her family helped townspeople resist the occupation. They paid for it with their lives.⁠
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At the start of the war, Motyzhyn’s population swelled by thousands as many Kyiv residents thought they would be safer in the countryside than the capital. But the war came quickly to the village, with more than 100 Russian army vehicles sweeping through its quiet, single-lane streets three days after Russia invaded.⁠
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“There are foreign bastards in our village,” Mayor Sukhenko posted on her page on the day they arrived. “Take care. Don’t leave your homes. Keep calm.”⁠
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During their occupation, many villagers say they relied on food and medication brought personally by the mayor or family members. She arranged deliveries from unoccupied areas and took milk to children in a nearby village. At the start of March, she organized a convoy of civilians to evacuate the town.⁠
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Sukhenko also took on a riskier role: helping pass information on Russian troop locations and movements to the Ukrainian army. “It is dangerous for everyone, but someone needs to do it,” said Mykola Kurach, the head of the village’s volunteer defense forces, who moved in with the Sukhenkos after his house was damaged by shelling.⁠
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After the Russians came under attack from Ukrainian artillery and ambush teams, the Russian aggression against locals surged, residents say.⁠
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📷: for