A year later, Ukraine commemorates the Boutcha massacre
On March 31, 2022, the Russian army withdrew from Boutcha and all of northern Kiev, a month after it began invading the country on orders from President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine marks this Friday the anniversary of the Russian withdrawal from this martyr city, where a massacre was discovered two days later. The Russian occupiers had left behind the corpses of cold-shot civilians, making this place the most glaring symbol of the atrocities attributed to Moscow troops.
Thus, on April 2, journalists from Agence France-Presse (AFP) found charred car corpses, destroyed houses and, above all, scattered several hundred meters away, the bodies of twenty men in civilian clothes, including one with his hands tied behind his back. These scenes shocked the whole world, Kiev and Westerners who denounced mass executions of civilians and war crimes. The Kremlin denied any involvement and spoke of a staging.
Visiting the site two days after the discovery, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi visibly agitatedly denounced “war crimes” that were “recognized by the world as genocide.” Since then, almost all foreign leaders who have visited Ukraine have made a detour to Boutcha.
A year after Boutcha’s release, AFP journalists on Thursday watched the reconstruction work in the peaceful suburb, which had a population of 37,000 before the war. Several dozen builders are busy between excavators, backhoe loaders and dump trucks rebuilding the houses and renewing the roadway.
When the trauma persists, residents interviewed by AFP recognized that the “pain subsides” because it is necessary to “continue living.” If he does not want to forget the dead, Archpriest Andriï, who heads the local parish, emphasizes that it is important “not to live in the past but in the future”.
According to Kiev, Russian forces have been accused of multiple abuses by Ukrainian authorities after hundreds of bodies were discovered in Butcha and other towns, hundreds of graves near Izium, or “torture chambers” in recaptured towns. Russia continues to deny any abuse by its armed forces.
On Thursday, Russian diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharova again condemned the Boutcha affair as “a crude and cynical provocation” by Kiev.
A man walks among the graves of unidentified people who were killed March 30, 2023 in the Ukrainian town of Boutcha, northwest of Kiev. SERGEI SUPINSKY / AFP