Brussels-based correspondent Erika Kinetz of the AP teamed up with PBS “Frontline” on a joint investigation showing that the much-reported Russian violence against civilians in and around Bucha, Ukraine, was not carried out by rogue soldiers. Rather, it was strategic and organized brutality, perpetrated in areas under tight Russian control and where military officers — including a prominent general — were present.
Vitalii Chernysh poses in Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine, April 28, 2022. Chernysh says Russian soldiers found a photo of Russian military vehicles someone had sent him on social media; the soldiers hauled him off with three other people, bound and blindfolded, to a nearby barn. The next day, Chernysh was taken, blindfolded, to a field and accused of being a spotter. “Where are the nationalists?” the soldiers demanded. They poured gasoline on him and pretended to set him on fire. They ordered him to run through what they said was a minefield. They beat his legs with a wooden plank. Chernysh began to wish they would just kill him. Then they decided to take him home and release him.
AP Photo / Erika Kinetz
The body of an elderly woman lies inside a house in Bucha, Ukraine, on the outskirts of Kyiv, April 5, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Andrii Shkoliar, left, and his mother-in-law, Natalia Savenko, sit at home in Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine, Aug. 1, 2022. On March 18, Shkoliar and his wife were walking to a nearby relative’s house when a dark-colored Russian-made SUV stopped abruptly. A Russian soldier stepped out of the SUV, demanding to know why they’d broken curfew. He said: “I give you one hour back and forth, otherwise you’ll be like this one in the car.” Shkoliar recalled. In the back of the SUV he saw a man with his eyes blindfolded and hands bound.
AP Photo / Erika Kinetz
The body of a man with his hands tied behind his back lies on the ground in Bucha, Ukraine, April 3, 2022. Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a small city northwest of Kyiv, saw the bodies of at least nine people in civilian clothes who appeared to have been killed at close range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs. An AP/“Frontline” investigation found that the brutality against civilians wasn’t caused by rogue Russian soldiers, but rather on orders from senior military leaders.
AP Photo / Vadim Ghirda
In Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine, April 28, 2022, Yevhen Pohranychnyi, right, and Ihor Syrotkin stand in front of a large house which had been used by Russian soldiers. On March 30 Pohranychnyi discovered the bodies two men bearing signs of torture in the back garden. The next morning, he brought the village head, the village priest and others to the site. Three more bodies had appeared overnight. The blood was fresh. Some had died with their eyes blindfolded and hands bound.
AP Photo / Erika Kinetz
The bodies of people killed during Russian shelling lie covered in the street in the town of Irpin, Ukraine, on the outskirts of Kyiv, March 6, 2022.
AP Photo / Diego Herrera Carcedo
Journalists examine the site of a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine, on the outskirts of Kyiv, April 5, 2022, after a month of Russian . occupation. Retreating soldiers left behind the bodies of more than 450 men, women and children — almost all bore signs of violent death.
AP Photo / Rodrigo Abd
Raisa Kozyr, head of the village of Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine, speaks during a July 27, 2022 interview. On March 19, Ukrainians launched a precision strike, knocking out a Russian storehouse in Zdvyzhivka according to Kozyr. Russian troops sprang into action, searching door to door for informants and checking documents. “We didn’t know what was happening around us,” she recalled. “What was happening in the woods. And we knew people were missing.”
AP Photo / Erika Kinetz
A Ukrainian serviceman walks amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, Ukraine, on the outskirts of Kyiv, April 6, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
For a pair of stories, AP and “Frontline” interviewed dozens of witnesses and survivors, and reviewed audio intercepts and surveillance camera footage to document what happened. The journalists also obtained Russian battle plans from the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank in London, showing how troops were instructed to block and destroy vestiges of “nationalist resistance.”
One of the stories tied the violence to Russian Col. Gen. Alexander Chaiko, who was in command. The other shows the wrenching impact of the Russian terror campaign on one woman who lost the man she called her “big, big love.” Kinetz’s story was written with sensitivity and showed how, in the end, the losses suffered far outweigh any measures of justice that may be applied. The pieces included photos by Kinetz and AP photojournalists Emilio Morenatti, Felipe Dana, Rodrigo Abd and Vadim Ghirda.
The deeply reported stories made headlines and had strong reader engagement scores. And if there is to be any justice, an international human rights lawyer, working to hold Russia legally accountable for atrocities in Syria, said the evidence collected was enough to merit an investigation of Gen. Chaiko at the International Criminal Court, because, ”half the job is done“ by the AP and “Frontline.“
Tetiana Boikiv, 52, center, sits on a bench as she waits for news of her husband, Mykola “Kolia” Moroz, at the Bucha, Ukraine, morgue, April 25, 2022. Russian soldiers took Kolia from his house on March 15. He was tortured and shot, his body found two weeks later with the bodies of four other men in a village 15 kilometers (9 miles) away where Russians had set up a major forward operating base for their assault on Kyiv.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Tetiana Boikiv, center, and Mykola “Kolia” Moroz celebrate their wedding in Ozera, Ukraine, in an Aug. 16, 2020 photo provided by Boikiv. The couple had met at the botanical garden in Kyiv on a church outing for singles. Boikiv moved to the village of Ozera just months before Russia’s invasion to build a new life with Kolia.
Courtesy Tetiana Boikiv via AP
Tetiana Boikiv, at left in group of three women, walks with friends and neighbors during a funeral service for her husband, Mykola “Kolia” Moroz, in the Ukrainian village of Ozera, near Bucha, April 26, 2022. Russian soldiers took Kolia from his house on March 15. He was tortured and shot, his body found two weeks later in a village 15 kilometers (9 miles) away.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Family, friends and neighbors of Mykola “Kolia” Moroz, 47, gather during a funeral service at his home in the Ukrainian village of Ozera, near Bucha, April 26, 2022.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Tetiana Boikiv, right, hugs neighbor Svitlana Pryimachenko during a funeral service for Boikiv’s husband, Mykola “Kolia” Moroz, in the Ukrainian village of Ozera, near Bucha, April 26, 2022. Russian soldiers took Kolia from his house on March 15; Boikiv never saw him alive again. “They took my big love,” she said.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Father Vasyl Bentsa shows a photo of the bodies of five men who were tortured and shot, including Mykola “Kolia” Moroz, 47, at the site of a temporary grave in a forest in Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine, where he buried them. There were no police around during the Russian occupation so he took it upon himself to document the deaths.
AP Photo / Erika Kinetz
Father Vasyl Bentsa stands at the site in Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine, where he dug a temporary grave for Mykola “Kolia” Moroz, 47, and four other men tortured and killed by Russian forces. Police left potential evidence of war crimes behind when they exhumed the bodies.
AP Photo / Erika Kinetz
Women wait for the start of a religious service to commemorate victims of the Russian occupation in Zdvyzhivka, on the outskirts of Kyiv, April 30, 2022. While atrocities in the nearby town of Bucha captured the world’s attention, the slaughter there was not an aberration. Rather, it was part of a trail of violence that spread far and wide, often under the radar of prosecutors, to ordinary villages like Zdvyzhivka, a half hour north of Bucha.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
A girl looks towards a woman crying during a religious service to commemorate victims of the Russian occupation in Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine, April 30, 2022.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti