Roadside burial for labourer shot through head in Ukraine's Bucha

Record ID: 1667549

  • Title: Roadside burial for labourer shot through head in Ukraine's Bucha
  • Date: 6th April 2022
  • Summary: BUCHA, UKRAINE (APRIL 5, 2022) (REUTERS) ***WARNING: CONTAINS PROFANITY*** BUCHA RESIDENT AND FRIEND OF THE DEAD MAN, SERHII LAHOVSKYI, AND WOMAN OUTSIDE OF A BUILDING, EMOTIONALLY REACTING TO AN (UNSEEN) BODY ON THE GROUND COVERED WITH A CARPET WOMAN SAYING TO LAHOVSKYI (Russian): "Open! Open that." LAHOVSKYI SAYING (Russian) "Look. What is being done... Russian bitches, trash, damn it. For what. So young..." WOMAN SAYING "Right in the head..." LAHOVSKYI SAYING: "He was so young...fuck." WOMAN SAYING: "Enough." WOMAN TRYING TO PULL LAHOVSKYI AWAY FROM BODY ON GROUND / LAHOVSKYI CRYING/ A HAND BELONGING TO THE BODY UNDER THE CARPET WOMAN SAYING: "Seryozha, that's it. Let’s go. We go. We have to be there at 4. Only two hours left to bury him. We have to dig the hole [grave] and take him from here. Get up." LAHOVSKYI CRYING: "This is my brother." VARIOUS OF LAHOVSKYI CRYING, GRIPPING FABRIC LAHOVSKYI SAYING "My brother." WOMAN SAYING: "Don’t touch, with your hands." LAHOVSKYI CRYING, GRIPPING FABRIC, SAYING: "I don’t give a damn." WOMAN SAYING: "That's his tattoo. And his sneakers." LAHOVSKYI CRYING, SAYING: "Yes, his." CARPET BEING DRAPED OVER BODY / WOMAN TRYING TO DRAG LAHOVSKYI AWAY FROM BODY WOMAN SAYING: "Let’s take him from here" LAHOVSKYI SAYING: "Yes, let’s take him." WOMAN SAYING: "We’ll dig him a little (hole) now and then we will bury him" LAHOVSKYI SAYING: "Help us, please." WOMAN SAYING: "Let’s go" (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) BUCHA RESIDENT, SERHII LAHOVSKYI, SAYING: "His father came and asked where his son was. He went to his mother’s to bring some food, and disappeared, man. What for? What for these beasts [gits] has shot him? Fucked beast... It is not Russia, it is a real fucking beast.” VARIOUS OF LAHOVSKYI DIGGING WITH A SHOVEL IN THE GARDEN OF A RESIDENTIAL AREA (SOUNDBITE) (Ukrainian) BUCHA RESIDENT, LIUDMYLA VERHINSKA, SAYING: “He just went to take out the garbage and he was shot. And I found him in seven days. By accident, there in the basement, on the central street. Found him in a shed. And today I found his friend. This one. Lesia told me, that Ihor lies there...What more can I say?"
  • Embargoed: 20th April 2022 11:46
  • Keywords: Bucha Kremlin Russian invasion of Ukraine accusations bodies war crimes
  • Location: BUCHA, UKRAINE
  • City: BUCHA, UKRAINE
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Europe,Military Conflicts
  • Reuters ID: LVA001984406042022RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS GRAPHIC MATERIAL AND PROFANITY
    Sobbing uncontrollably, Serhii Lahovskyi nuzzles against the shrouded corpse of his closest childhood friend, who disappeared when Russian troops occupied the Ukrainian town of Bucha near Kyiv and was found shot through the head and dumped in a stairwell.
    The labourer's eyes cloudy and half-open, black and crimson streaks of blood caked on his face and snaking down to his lips from an exit wound that cracked his skull, Igor Litvinenko had been shot through the mouth at very close range. He was found by local residents just days before his 30th birthday.
    Dried clots of blood filled his nostrils. And his torso was covered with bright red welts, which Lahovskyi believes resulted from a beating. He was dumped together with another man who was found mutilated. His wife and other residents said the man who was mutilated had been taken prisoner by Russian troops who invaded Ukraine.
    Reuters cannot independently verify the details of their accounts.
    Litvinenko had been visiting his mother to bring her food when he disappeared.
    “He was so young,” Lahovskyi said on Tuesday (April 5), his eyes wide and reddened, gesturing with his hand to say they had been best friends since they were knee-high. "This is not Russia, this is a beast."
    He and fellow residents in a housing complex in the ravaged town of Bucha, where Reuters has found a trail of what officials say are extra-judicial killings since Russian troops pulled back last week, grabbed shovels and dug a shallow grave on a grass verge by one housing block.
    Then they used a carpet to carry the remains, placing him in the ditch, folding it over him and covering him with wooden boards, before shovelling earth on top.
    Panting heavily after digging the grave, shaking his head in dismay, local locksmith and odd-job man Urii
    Churachenko bent down and placed two cigarettes in the earth as a token for his friend.
    "I knew him since childhood," he said. "I knew his parents, his brother. Everything... we went through life together. I don’t have words."
    Reuters has seen at least four victims shot through the head in Bucha, one with their hands tied behind their back.
    Officials say they have found more than 300 dead so far.
    Ukrainian officials say Russia has committed genocide and have called for an investigation by the International Criminal Court.
    The Kremlin dismisses the allegations as propaganda. Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council on Tuesday that Russian troops are not targeting civilians, dismissing accusations of abuse as lies. He said that while Bucha was under Russian control "not a single civilian suffered from any kind of violence."
    (Production: Ivan Lubysh-Kirdey, Abdelaziz Boumzar, Joan Soley, Isabella Ronca)
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