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“They told us that they came to deliver us”
To Lypiwka, a village located respective tens of kilometres west of Kiev, the Russians entered at the very beginning full scale invasions. “ They said they had come to set us free,” says 1 of the locals at the Lemkin Center. The Centre, operating at the Polish Pilecki Institute, collects certificates concerning Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The witness reports quoted in the text come from the latest report.
The victim was a 62-year-old Nikolay. A man watched the Russians standing in his own backyard, reporting in April 2022. Radio Swoboda, reporting the advancement of Ukrainian investigation into this murder. The occupiers shot Mykola and then fired an armored transporter at his house, which burned to the ground.
However, this crime was only a prelude to what the “liberators” did to the people of Lypiwa.
A spoon under occupation. “For specified a refrigerator you can buy half the village from us”
Life in Lypowka has become unbearable. The Russians cut off the village from the world. They put snipers on the roofs of buildings. People could not decision freely around the village. They had no access to medical assistance. We were moving out of food. Women were afraid of rape. Fear grew.
You couldn't look into the eyes erstwhile you passed on the military road. “If their troops are passing by you, you must sit on the ground,” said 1 of the witnesses in a conversation with the Lemkin Center staff.
However, it was not safe at home either. The Russians stole and destroyed the property of the people.
— They put a grenade in the washing machine. I guess their toilets and washing device were the most upset at home. They didn't have that. Jealousy drove them crazy, says the resident of Skupiwa. They shot the fridge with a device gun, you know? 1 of them said: “Wow. Half the village can be bought for specified a refrigerator,” another resident reports.
Russian soldiers destroyed not only equipment, but full houses. Witnesses tell of how they fired on buildings from BTRs (Russian armored transporters), depriving people of shelter.
Evacuate. “I felt something was wrong”
After a twelve days of occupation, information came out that a green corridor would be created and civilians would be able to leave the area of the fighting.
On 11 March, residents of the neighbouring towns of Makarowa, Płachtianki and Hawronszczyna began to descend to Lypiwka. However, witness reports show that the Russians provided conflicting information — cars being turned around, people being sent from place to place. They were threatened that the roads were mined, that they would be shot at by stationed close Ukrainians. Cars drove around, standing ready to evacuate — but incapable to leave the occupied areas.
Suddenly, the communicative changed on March 12. Russian soldiers told the villagers to get going. any even mention that they were threatened with death if they did not leave the Pledge. Others experienced gestures of kindness — soldiers helped 1 household to replace the wheel, others passed on food rations to children. “We do not attack civilians, average people! It's all yours! The Banders," they said.
Those who decided to evacuate went to the cars. They packed their full families, took their neighbors with them, took dogs and cats.
As witnesses report, at around 16 o'clock on Saturday 2 Russian military arrived at the assembly site. They told them to get in the cars rapidly and form a column. It consisted of 14 vehicles — 4 buses and 10 passenger cars. On the cars, the soldiers ordered white ribbons to be hung, large inscriptions “Children” were painted on the vehicles — in Ukrainian and Russian.
“Eat slowly, 1 after another, do not turn and don’t turn around, for the another lane of the road is mined,” the Russians instructed. They sent a column towards close Koroliwka, which was under Ukrainian control.
pressmateRoad connecting the Lypka to Koroliwka
They drove as they were told — in 1 lane, slowly, at a distance. The column passed the checkpoints in the village. They weren't stopped on any of them. No 1 searched them, no documents, no things, no cell phones. It seemed as if the Russians, who have been trying to hold their departure in the last fewer decades, now wanted them to leave Skipkika as shortly as possible.
“Mama said: tank”
The first cars passed the cemetery, which is found at the exit from Lypiwa, on the right. Then a short strip of forest and fields open on both sides of the road. In the distance you can see the first buildings of Koroliwka. We did it. People in cars were relieved.
Then they saw that on the right side of the road, the fields from the side of Andrijiwa were coming Russian combat cars.
Hell
There was chaos on the road. erstwhile the shots were fired, the first cars in the column first slowed down and then pulled forward. Bullets pierced the tires, chopped the body. Cars started burning. People moving further in the column were afraid to overtake those whose vehicles were immobilized — the second lane of the road was to be mined.
People in immobilized vehicles desperately tried to defend the children driving with them. According to witness reports, many covered them with their own bodies.
A hail of missiles fell on the road. For those whose cars stopped, the only way was to escape the car. The Russians attacked from the right. Ukrainians jumped out of vehicles on the left side of the road and rolled to a ditch on the side of the road. A frightening image of suffering and full confusion emerges from the description of witnesses.
Witnesses say that they sometimes had difficulty getting out of the vehicle. The fire continued, the missiles damaged the mechanisms, the doors blocked, the unconscious wounded entrapped their own bodies with the only way out. Burning cars turned into deadly traps.
In 1 of the cars in the mediate of the column, there was a household of five: mother, grandma and grandfather, and 2 brothers aged 6 and 11. 1 of the witnesses says the detonation threw a younger kid out of the car.
Monika Andruszewska / Lemkin Centre/Piletsky Institutecar from the escape column from Lypówka
Grandma realized my grandson wasn't in the car. - I got out of the car, walked, swam... I remember getting up, walking around the car and calling him, says a woman. As she recalls, she found a boy on the side of the road, or, in fact, she fell by him, and she doesn't know how it happened. Only another witness explains that he had to pull her legs — she was so shocked that she was standing erect erstwhile she was surrounded by missiles. The full face was covered in blood, she was injured erstwhile a Russian bullet hit their car.
Her second grandson, husband and daughter stayed in a burning car.
“He kept asking questions: is my parent crawling? And Mom burned in the car”
The deep ditch on the left side of the road only for a short time was a safe haven. After the Russians dealt with the column, the hunt for those who survived began. Bullets started falling over, hurting people lying there. They're trapped again. On the 1 hand, the road with the burning cars. On the another hand, an open field. It's empty March, no leaves, no bushes, nothing to shield snipers from sight. From the fuel leaking from the shot cars, dry grasses in the ditch caught fire.
Monika Andruszewska / Lemkin Centre/Piletsky InstituteBurnt cars from the escape column
Meanwhile, Russians began to approach on the another side of the road. People heard the cartilage of armored vehicles coming. You gotta make decisions. We gotta run. But where?
“We must crawl,” they began repeating the survivors. They were injured, terrified, and confused. There was 1 thing, behind them are Russian soldiers, and missiles fall around. "We must crawl."
“I told him, “Come, we will lie down and close our eyes.”
According to the Lemkin Center, those who survived the first attack chose 3 escape routes. The first 5 cars from the evacuation column broke out of fire and reached Koroliwka. Unfortunately, there were fatalities here too. Drivers, even seriously injured, in terrible stress and adrenaline reached the posts of Ukrainian soldiers. They frequently knew that the passengers they were carrying were dead.
However, they could have passed information on civilians who were stuck by the road. The Ukrainian military, trying to aid them, set fire to the reeds in the field so that dense smoke would shield the escapees.
Some people actually ran away. The second way to last was to run straight through the fields to a close farm. respective people spent the night there.
The last group of survivors were those who were incapable to run and inactive crawled towards Koroliwka.
Ukrainian soldiers from the checkpoint, which was about 1,500 metres from the burning cars, ran other a group crawling through the fields. 1 of the women, the 1 who helped her grandma and her six-year-old granddaughter, mentions that she first saw a threat in the approaching military.
Monika Andrushewska: everything was a logical whole
Six people were killed as a consequence of Russian fire, including 1 child. 7 people were injured, including 2 children. Lemkin’s center besides reported the death of 10 home animals — killed in cars, any burned alive. Others were shot on the road, at close scope — Russians “for fun” were killing escaping dogs and cats.
Witnesses who were talking to the Lemkin Center staff are convinced — the attack on the civilian column was planned for the Russian action. Why was this crime for the occupiers? Onet discussed this with the study coordinator Monika Andruszewski.
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Katarzyna Barczyk: Witnesses are convinced that the Russians deliberately sent them to their deaths, the promise of a "green corridor" was a trap. At the same time, they propose that it was about putting work on the Ukrainian army. Do you share that belief?
Monika AndrushewskaAt first I wondered if it might have been an accident. But another people talked about how this journey was set with the Russian side, about the instructions given to them by the Russian military. They instructed people to drive slowly, goosey, to usage only 1 lane, lying that the another is mined, precisely to make it easier to attack them. Another witnesses repeating the same thing dispelled all doubts, all made up a logical whole. besides crucial are the testimonies of people who managed to scope Koroliwka, controlled by Ukrainian troops, which confirm that Shortly after the attack, a Russian assault on the village began.
It was an full operation, requiring planning, radio communication between the Russian post releasing the column from Lypika and armored vehicles, which left practically in parallel with the cars, to start firing in the most convenient place. It wasn't an accident, it was a planned trap.. My associate, Iryna Dowhań, repeats that the situation resembles her ark Noah — just as Noah gathered men and animals into the ark, so the Russians gathered more men, preparing them to go to their deaths.
Did the Russians effort to usage this propaganda event?
If you mention Russian assurances that they would do nothing wrong, but the Ukrainian military could attack if you consider that the attack occurred erstwhile the cars had already arrived at the Ukrainian station, and look at the way the Russians were preparing the cars to leave — that they had the white flags hang, add the inscriptions “children” — It can be concluded that they were preparing a image for propaganda. On a larger scale, they did not make it — firstly, due to the fact that after 2 weeks they had to retreat from the Kiev circuit, and secondly, due to the fact that despite the very strong determination of the Russian troops to kill the passengers of the cars, they were fortunately unsuccessful. They survived the witnesses who saw the attack.
The tragedy of the evacuation column was besides utilized by the Russians for local propaganda, aimed at controlling the population in conquered areas. They widely distributed information that the column was shot at by Ukrainian troops. After this event, people were simply terrified of even trying to leave occupied areas. As a result, the Russians managed to keep more Ukrainian civilians under occupation, which meant for them both the continued usage of the population as surviving shields and the failure to get outside delicate data on the situation and details specified as the retention place of military technology, etc.
Was it hard to scope witnesses? What was the process of collecting certificates?
At first, we found 1 witness. Totally by accident I started talking to the owner of the ruined store, and during the conversation it turned out that he was the driver of the burnt minibus from the column. erstwhile we spoke, he inactive had wounds on his face and hands. We went to the scene, showed precisely where the Russians were shooting from. Then he gave us contacts to the next witnesses, and they to the next ones, yet people left full families, with neighbors, knew each other.
Reaching the witnesses was not a problem, but this event was so traumatic that it is frequently so that we have a witness, for example, only 1 individual in the car or family, due to the fact that others are simply incapable to tell about it. The individual who feels up to it is simply a witness.
What happened to Grandma and the boy who was the only 1 to escape the burning car that killed the remainder of the family?
They come home, they effort to live. Physical wounds have already partially healed, which can't be said for these psychics. This family's life is irretrievably broken. Just consider — how can a kid who saw his mother, grandpa and brother burn alive live? What unites everyone who has survived is the desire for the Russians to be punished for their crime.
This crime is under investigation. Do you know what phase he's at? Is it so hard to find who was stationed there, which Russian troops are responsible?
W Ukraine is under investigation, but I know our study overtakes them. Let us remember that there is inactive a war in Ukraine, so it can be said that Ukrainian law enforcement authorities sometimes simply do not keep up with Russia and its subsequent crimes. The Ukrainian prosecutor's office has spoken to us on this matter, of course we are giving them all the information.
We have any hypotheses about who the Russian branch is liable for this, but I think the announcement is on the Ukrainian side.
I think our study is very crucial now that there are discussions on peace talks with Russia. During 11 years in Ukraine, I have not seen the Russians keep their word on any issue. An example of the calculated execution of families with children who tried to save lives in the Lypian evacuation column shows how much Russian safety guarantees are worth.
