At St. Andrew’s Church in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, a few days before Orthodox Easter, 116 bodies were removed from a mass grave. Bucha dug the trench to rebury each victim respectfully and with their name. Photos of the dead have been published online; DNA was taken and families wept as they confirmed the fate of the missing.
Bucha, 20 miles from Kyiv, was a modern suburb of 37,000, with big-box stores and apartment buildings. But for 27 days in March, his people suffered a distinct kind of cruelty – cruelty inflicted by soldiers facing defeat. 458 were killed. Serhii Kaplychnyi, the burial official for the city of Bucha, said the Russians left the bodies where they fell: in their homes and on the streets.
“We understood that they had to be buried, but we didn’t know how to go about it,” Kaplychnyi told 60 Minutes.
Kaplychnyi had to negotiate with the Russians for permission to collect the bodies. Scott Pelley spoke with Kaplychnyi and two men who worked with him, Serhii Matiuk and Vladyslav Minchenko.
“I imagine a mass grave was the last thing you wanted,” Pelley told them. “Why was that necessary?”
“There was no more room in the morgue,” Matiuk replied.
“We were just placing bodies near the morgue because we didn’t know what to do anymore,” Kaplychnyi said.
“Serhii,” Pelley asked, “where in the city did you find bodies and what condition were they in?” »
“With a lot of bodies,” Kaplychnyi said, “it was obvious it was the work of a sniper because they had been shot in the head.”
“Some were riding bikes,” Matiuk said. “Some were bringing firewood in their car, loaded it into their car…remember, we picked up this man and woman? They just loaded firewood into their car and brought it back to heat their house. been slaughtered.”
“Were you able to determine how these people were killed? Pelley asked.
“Most often they shot people in the back,” Minchenko said. “Those who were killed while walking on the road – they were shot in the back. [people] we gathered in the basements – they were all shot in the back. People were on their knees, blindfolded.”
“People who were tied up were tortured,” Matiuk added. “They were shot… first in a leg or an arm, then the last shot was in the head”
The Russians were killing too many too fast. There was no electricity for refrigeration. A temporary mass grave was inevitable. Kaplychnyi felt his only choice in the matter was to dig it in the shadow of St. Andrew’s.
“None of them deserved to die this way,” Minchenko told Pelley. “God sees everything. Because of the way they died, their deaths…these people will never be forgotten. Their names, their faces. Let people remember and know that this was done by Russia. For what? For nothing.”
Of all the mourners who met Pelley at St. Andrew’s, it seems no one has lost more than Oleksandr Chikmariov.
“[They were] my happiness,” said Chikmariov, “[They were] my everything. I wish I could bring it all back.”
Chikmariov and his wife, Rita, tried to flee the Bucha shelling in their car with their sons, Matviy, 9, and Klym, 4. On the road, they came across a Russian armored vehicle.
“We stopped. Rita yelled at me to turn around and go inside,” Chikmariov told Pelley. “I heard gunshots. I turned to the back seat and Rita screamed ‘[I’m hit!]’ Rita and my children were dead. I was so shocked that I hadn’t noticed that my leg was hanging on by a piece of skin. I didn’t even feel the pain. I got out behind the car, then the car caught fire.”
Chikmariov was rescued by firefighters and saw his family burn.
He drove Pelley, on his new artificial leg, in front of St. Andrew’s. Their home was next to the makeshift cemetery where his family was first buried.
“What would you like the world to remember them for?” Pelley asked.
“For the world to remember, well, so much joy. Such a thirst for life,” Chikmariov said. “Why did he have to die? For what? It makes no sense. Why? It makes no sense, in any world, to kill them. Why? Why was he killed? How can I keep living? Just keep crying and keep breathing? What do I do? What else can I do? He’s gone, I can’t hug him anymore, I can’t I can’t kiss it I can’t do anything They were the meaning of my life Can I live with this How? Just hold on and endure Just endure fight all that’s inside of me do next? I don’t know how to live.
