Police identified Pskov paratroopers involved in the shootings in Bucha

Author:
Oleksandra Opanasenko
Date:

Police have identified all 12 Russian servicemen who killed 16 Ukrainian civilians at the intersection of Vokzalna and Yablunska streets in Bucha on March 5-9, 2022.

This was reported by the National Police of Ukraine.

Women, men, and children aged 14 to 69 were killed by Russian actions. They were all shot from machine guns and combat vehicles as they tried to get to work or relatives, evacuate their families from the war zone, or simply find food.

Among the dead were a woman with a red manicure, a man on a bicycle, and a volunteer in a minibus, whose photos were circulated all over the worldʼs media after the de-occupation of Bucha.

The police established that 12 paratroopers from the 234th Airborne Assault Regiment from Pskov were involved in the killings of Ukrainian civilians. Their commander gave the order to occupy a sector on the corner of Vokzalna and Yablunska streets and to fire lethally at anyone who came into their field of vision. He personally supervised this.

Police suspect 12 Russian paratroopers from Pskov of shooting Ukrainian civilians in Bucha.

Police have gathered evidence that the commander of the paratroopers gave them the order to shoot civilians. He has been charged with giving an order in violation of the laws and customs of war, combined with premeditated murder. He now faces life imprisonment.

  • Advancing on Kyiv at the start of a full-scale invasion in 2022, Russian forces attempted to control Bucha, Irpin, and Gostomel in order to encircle and besiege Kyiv from the west. The Ukrainian Armed Forces regained control of Bucha on March 31, 2022.
  • In total, during the occupation, Russian invaders committed over 9,000 war crimes and killed over 1,700 civilians in the Bucha district of the Kyiv region.