HomeJournalists of the American publication The New York Times in their investigation came to the conclusion that the perpetrators of mass murders of civilians in Buch, Kyiv Region, were soldiers of the 234th Airborne Assault Regiment under the command of Lt. Col.
Artem Horadilov.
For eight months, the newspaper's journalists collected evidence of the Russian military's involvement in the mass executions of Buchi residents.
The evidence collected by them shows that the killings of civilians were part of a deliberate and systematic effort by the Russians to "break through" to Kyiv.
"Russian soldiers interrogated and punished unarmed men and killed people who unwittingly crossed their paths — children fleeing with their families, locals hoping to find food, people just trying to get home on bicycles," the NYT wrote.
Journalists spent several months in Buchi after the retreat of Russian troops.
They interviewed local residents, collected surveillance footage and obtained exclusive footage from government sources.
Then they analyzed the materials and recreated the murders of people on Yablunska Street, which the locals now call the "road of death", down to the minute.
Among the evidence of the involvement of the 234th Airborne Assault Regiment are recordings of telephone conversations and deciphered callsigns of commanders on Russian radio channels.
Despite the fact that various Russian military units were located in Buchi, and the number of killed civilians exceeded 400 people, the journalists named the 234th Airborne Regiment, based in the Russian city of Pskov, as the main culprit of the murders on Yablunskaya Street.
Reporters point to matching military equipment, uniforms, radios and packing slips on ammunition boxes.
"Residents of Buchi said that when Russian soldiers interrogated them, their phones were often taken away.
Suspecting that the military might also have taken away the phones of the victims, our journalists received from the Ukrainian authorities a database of all calls and messages received from Buchansk district to Russia during March.
While interviewing the relatives of the victims, we collected their phones and checked whether they were in the database.
A horrifying picture emerged: Soldiers routinely used victims' phones to call home to Russia, often hours after they were killed," the NYT writes.
After analyzing the phone numbers of Russian servicemen and identifying profiles in social networks associated with their family members, the media identified two dozen paratroopers who were part of the 234th regiment.
"In many cases, we interviewed their relatives and directly spoke with some soldiers, two of whom confirmed that they were in the 234th regiment and were in Buchi," the journalists noted.
They also identified three dozen victims of Russian crimes, whose main cause of death was gunshot wounds.
The killings of civilians in Buchi, as noted in the investigation, were not random acts of violence.
The victims on Yablunska Street did not die in the crossfire of Russian and Ukrainian troops and were not mistakenly shot during the fighting.
"The Russian troops killed them on purpose, probably as part of a systematic sweep, in order to secure the way to the capital.
Dozens of civilians were shot.
In other cases, men suspected of ties to the Ukrainian military were detained and killed," the NYT writes.
The journalists were also able to identify the commander of the 234th regiment, Lt. Col.
Artyom Horadilov
.
According to the investigation, he directed the actions of the Russian landing force in Buchi.
His presence in this city is confirmed by the recordings of video surveillance cameras, as well as two soldiers of this regiment who were in the city.
He was also recorded in Buchi, where he, together with two other soldiers, walked the streets near the bodies of killed Ukrainians.
Evidence of the involvement of the Russian paratroopers of the 234th regiment in the atrocities in Buchi was the symbolism on the military equipment they tried to hide, the documentation left in the city, and the personal belongings of the invaders.
In particular, in one of the documents, the number of the military unit of the Pskov paratroopers is indicated - military unit 74268. They also left behind the chevron of their regiment.
On April 2, Kyiv Oblast was liberated from Russian troops.
After the retreat of the Russian military, mass killings of the civilian population were recorded in the liberated towns and villages.
The most massive ones are in Buchi.
The Kremlin "categorically rejects any accusations of killing civilians", although the facts of the killing during the Russian occupation were confirmed by satellite images.
Russia's war against Ukraine
At 5 o'clock in the morning on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the start of a military operation against Ukraine in the Donbass at the request of the "DPR" and "LPR" groups.
On February 21, during a televised address to Russians, Putin called the so-called "DPR" and "LPR" independent states within the regions.
On February 22, the Federation Council ratified this decision.
All days of the war, Ukrainian cities were bombarded with rockets, aircraft flew over them.
Russian troops are attacking, including from the territory of Belarus, using airfields, bases and roads.
Representatives of Lukashenka's regime justify the war, his opponents consider the territory of Belarus to be occupied, many call for resistance to the Russian invaders.
On February 27, the International Territorial Defense Legion was created in Ukraine, and foreign volunteers were invited to join it.
Belarusians also entered there.
During the six months of the war in Ukraine, 12 Belarusians are known to have died fighting on the Ukrainian side.
These are Ilya Khrenov, Aleksei Skoblia, Dmitri Apanasovich, Dmitri Rubashevskyi, Konstantin Dzubaila, Pavel "Volat", Ivan Marchuk, Vasil Parfyankov, Vasil Grudovik, Vadim Shatrov, Aleksei "Yakub" and one of the fighters of Kalinovsky's regiment, whose name was not mentioned.
In addition, it is known for sure about two prisoners from Kalinin - Ian Djurbeyka and Syarhei Dzhogtsev.
There are no details about their fate.
It is also known about cases of death of natives of Belarus who fought in Ukraine on the side of Russia.
During the six months of the war, there were nine such people.
On March 30, the UN approved the composition of an independent commission that will investigate Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
It included people who worked in the analysis of the genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Contrary to Putin's statements about attacks only on military facilities, the Russians are bombing schools, kindergartens and residential areas of Ukrainian cities.
The Russians are using banned weapons, including cluster bombs, against civilians.
On April 1, Lithuania became the first country in the European Union to completely abandon Russian gas.
Latvia and Estonia followed her example.
Germany has promised to completely stop using Russian oil by the end of 2022.
On April 2, after the liberation of the town of Bucha near Kyiv, photojournalists published dozens of photographs showing hundreds of dead people, victims of mass murders committed by Russian troops.
Many are buried in spontaneous mass graves.
The Russian occupation also brought great destruction to the people of Barodyan.
It is also known about a number of rapes, including babies.
On May 9, the US President signed the Land Leasing Law.
This law restores the program from the Second World War, which will speed up the delivery of weapons to Ukraine and increase the amount of such assistance.
In June, two volunteers from Great Britain and one from Morocco were sentenced to death in the so-called "DNR".
The same punishment threatens some other prisoners.
On July 29, as a result of an attack on the colony in Alenivtsi, at least 53 Ukrainian prisoners who previously defended the Azovstal plant and surrendered after completing their military mission were killed.
The Russians accused Ukraine of the attack, the Ukrainian side declared the deliberate killing of prisoners by the Russian side.
The official number of dead Ukrainian soldiers was announced on August 22 by the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny.
According to him, it is about 9,000 soldiers.
During the six months of the war, Russia was able to occupy about 20% of the Ukrainian territory.
In March, the area of occupied land reached 30%.
However, at the end of the month, Russian troops retreated from the north of Ukraine, as well as partially from Kharkiv.
At the end of August, Crimea, Luhansk and Kherson regions were completely occupied.
And also 50% of the territory of the Donetsk region, about 70% of the Zaporizhia region, approximately 30% of the Kharkiv region.
Kherson remains the only regional center of Ukraine captured by Russia after February 24.
The city was occupied by Russian troops in the first days of the war without actually fighting.
Kyiv suspects part of the former leadership of Kherson and the region of treason.
The former head of the SBU of the Kharkiv region was also detained on such suspicion.
In September, Ukrainian troops launched a large-scale counteroffensive, as a result of which Russian forces began to rapidly flee from their positions in the Kharkiv region.
Only on the day of September 11, Ukrainians liberated more than 20 settlements in Slobazhanshchyna.
In September, Ukraine withdrew its mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo under the AAN to send an aviation unit to defend against Russian aggression.
On September 21, Putin announced the mobilization in Russia.
After this statement, thousands of Russians went to the border crossings and began to leave for Georgia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Mongolia, Finland and other countries.
In Russia itself, opponents of the war set fire to several military offices.
Even people without military experience began to be conscripted into the army, despite promises that only experienced people would go to war.
The mobilization of men into the Russian army also takes place in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
On October 2, Putin submitted a bill to the Russian parliament, which is an attempt to annex parts of four regions of Ukraine.
Two new republics - "LPR" and "DNR" - and two regions - Zaporizhia and Kherson will be part of Russia.
But thanks to the counteroffensive of the Ukrainians, the borders drawn in Moscow are no longer fully controlled by the occupying forces.
In October, Ukrainian troops successfully continued their counteroffensive, at the beginning of October they liberated Liman and Yampal, as well as significantly approached Svatov in the Luhansk region, and from there the way to Severodanetsk and Lysichansk opens.
On the morning of October 10, the Russians began intensive shelling of Ukrainian territory, including the center of Kyiv.
Rockets also reached Lviv, depriving the city of electricity.
On October 10, Lukashenka held a meeting with the Security Council and announced the deployment of a joint grouping of troops with Putin.
On November 11, after successful battles in the south, Ukrainian troops entered Kherson.
The Russians blew up several bridges in the region during their retreat.
On the evening of November 15, Russia fired 100 missiles across the territory of Ukraine, primarily at energy facilities, and in Poland, two missiles fell in the village of Przewodau, 6 km from the border with Ukraine, killing two people.
The Polish authorities summoned the Russian ambassador for explanations.
Then it turned out that it was probably the result of the work of the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces, which shot down a Russian missile.
In November, with the onset of cold weather, Russia intensified its missile attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
As a result, many Ukrainian cities and part of Moldova were left without electricity and water.
Ukraine called an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council.
Independent verification of information about military actions provided by officials of various parties is still impossible.