A year ago, the town of Buča near Kiev was liberated. After that, the whole world was stunned by the crimes committed by the Russians. In the meantime, is it known who the perpetrators are?
Valentina Sen was killed by the Russians in the yard of her house. The dead body of that 69-year-old pensioner lay there for six days until the Ukrainian army liberated the Kiev suburb of Bucha on March 31 last year.
Her daughter Tetjana stayed with her mother in the first weeks of the Russian occupation, and only a day before the crime she managed to escape to Kiev. Valentina did not want to leave the house. "What did I hide from them? Nothing will happen to me," she said.
"My mother bled to death"
Neighbors saw what happened to Valentina: she went out to fetch water in Sklosavodska Street, and Russian soldiers were right there. After that, on the same day, they came to her yard and simply started shooting at her.
"Every day they killed at least two people in their yards," says Tetjana.
"My mom was just on the phone when she saw the Russians and heard the shooting. She immediately started running and managed to get into the house, but the bullet went through the door and pierced her liver. My mother bled to death."
Neighbors who saw it told her all about it. However, not even a year after the murder of her mother, Tetjana was still not heard by the investigative authorities. Her family does not even know if criminal proceedings have been initiated. Tetjana's son was questioned only once, in April 2022. He also found his dead grandmother, after Ukrainian soldiers came to Buča. He buried her with his own hands in the local cemetery.
Shot in the woods
Serhij Jaremič from Buča had a similar experience last year. His father, Oleksandr, was killed by the Russians just a few days before the liberation, on March 25.
He distributed food to his fellow citizens not far from the Russian army checkpoint. At the beginning of that month, eight of his friends were simply shot in Jablunska street. Oleksandr died two weeks later, after his house was searched.
Russian soldiers found his father's mobile phone, Serhij says. Immediately before that, the two of them spoke on that phone. After the search, the Russians took his father to the forest and killed him there.
In that case, criminal proceedings were initiated for murder. Serhij tried for a year to find out something about the investigation, but in vain. First, an exhumation was performed and evidence was collected, but after a few months, the case was taken over by a new investigator, says Serhij. He was heard only recently.
"Everything is going slowly, but there is still progress. They told me what they have done and what they still intend to do. It is a long process and I don't believe it will be concluded in a year," says the son of the murdered Oleksandr. But he believes that justice will be served and that the culprits will be found.
Lots of crimes and very careful investigation
The State Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine is dealing with almost 11.000 cases of possible war crimes committed by Russian units. And that figure is only for the Kyiv region. Of these, about 700 crimes were committed in Buca. In total, more than 7.000 criminal proceedings were initiated, 118 suspects and 50 other persons were summoned to court. However, as a rule, all this happens in the absence of the suspects. So far, four people have been convicted before the Ukrainian court.
You can hear from the prosecutor's office that an investigation is being conducted in practically all cases, but that due to such a large number of crimes, everyone has their hands full: both the prosecutor's office and the police and the state security service SBU. They are regularly helped by the population, when an area is liberated. In any case, they already have a large amount of evidence and information about the crimes committed.
The investigation is taking a long time, because the Ukrainian prosecutor's office is trying to ensure that it is by no means just the trial of one side in the war conflict. They want the evidence to be sufficient in every court in the world. It is very difficult to determine the exact identity of the perpetrators, and arrests are currently practically impossible.
"The main goal of this phase of the investigation is to collect witness statements and gather complete evidence about the circumstances of the crime. We often manage to find out a lot during the interrogation of captured Russian soldiers and thus establish the identity of certain war criminals," says Oleh Tkalenko, Deputy Chief State Prosecutor. in the Kyiv region.
When interrogating prisoners, as a rule, not much should be questioned: there are plenty of perpetrators who boasted to other soldiers about their atrocities, murders of civilians and abuses of all kinds.
If they get out of Russia...
Despite the lengthy and detailed investigation, Tkalenko believes that many war crimes indictees will be tried this year. "After the court's verdict, an international warrant will be issued for that person. Ukraine has a whole series of international agreements on the extradition of such criminals. We hope that some of them will be arrested at least abroad and will be extradited to Ukraine to start serving their sentences more while the war lasts. And after our victory, we will find everyone else."
Although one can understand the optimism of the Ukrainian prosecutor, it will certainly not be quick or easy, especially when it comes to command responsibility. But Ukraine is not alone in the criminal prosecution of criminals: in twenty countries it is also possible to initiate proceedings for crimes committed abroad, so verdicts are also expected in the courts of those countries.
And then there is the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which recently issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Commissioner for the Rights of Children and Minors Maria Ljvova-Belova. They are accused of systematically kidnapping Ukrainian children and taking them to Russia.
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