Investigators of the Kyiv regional prosecutor’s office have identified the Russian military who in March last year killed a civilian and tried to kill his son in occupied Bucha, the office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine said.
The suspect, as specified in the department, is charged in absentia with ill-treatment of the civilian population, combined with premeditated murder (part 2 of article 438, part 2 of article 15, part 2 of article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
According to the investigation, in March 2022, a 14-year-old resident of Bucha and his father rode bicycles to the point of distribution of humanitarian aid. On one of the streets they were stopped by a Russian serviceman. The civilians were unarmed and wore white armbands indicating that they belonged to the civilian population.
In my country blocked
present tense
They reported that they did not pose a danger, but the military man fired two aimed shots: first at a man, and then at a minor. The father died in front of his son, the teenager fell to the ground, after which the soldier shot him again in the head area, but the bullet hit the hood of the jacket. The guy lay on the ground and did not move until the military man left. Then he asked for help from local residents, he was given first aid.
The family of the shot resident of Bucha now lives abroad. In March last year, a surviving teenager, ninth grader Yuri, told Present Time about how his father died.
Last December, The New York Times identified the Russian paratroopers who carried out the mass executions of Ukrainians in Bucha as Russian paratroopers from the 234th Air Assault Regiment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Artem Gorodilov.
For eight months, the journalists of the publication have been collecting evidence of the involvement of the Russian military in the mass executions of the inhabitants of Bucha. The evidence they have gathered suggests that the killings of civilians were part of a deliberate and systematic effort by Russians to “force” their way into Kyiv.
After Russian troops withdrew from the city of Bucha, northwest of Kiev, and Ukrainian sappers and military entered there, they reported dozens of bodies of the dead, who were found right on the streets of the city. Photos of the dead in civilian clothes, sometimes with their hands tied, were published by Reuters, UNIAN, AFP and other media. Several people with their hands tied were shot in the back of the head.
The Russian Defense Ministry denied that the Russian military was involved in the executions of civilians, and calls the photo of the bodies a “provocation.” However, local residents, the Ukrainian authorities and many Western politicians have no doubt that it is the military of the Russian Federation from specific units who are involved in these crimes, and call for an independent investigation into these deaths and punish those responsible with the help of an international tribunal.
