The village of Myrotske, Bucha district, is located 15 kilometers from the capital. The village itself was of interest to the occupiers mainly as a convenient position for shelling Bucha and neighboring settlements. When the Russians entered Myrotske with their equipment, they ordered the locals to sit in the cellars: whoever went outside would be shot. Another mass burial of Ukrainians killed by the occupiers was recently discovered in Myrotsky. Among them were the villagers.

Slidstvo.Info visited Myrotske more than two months after the liberation from the Russians, but the occupation is remembered very well, dialogues with Russians are retold and every night spent in the cellars is remembered.

“They tied his hands behind his back, shot him in the head”

Now Myrotske is immersed in greenery, which hides traces of destruction from Russian equipment. And at the end of February the village was surrounded only by bare forest and fields. Locals say that the occupiers burned the grass and reeds on the ponds that survived the winter – they were preparing a site for landing. Here they say that the occupiers themselves said that they entered the village by accident: they went from Ivankov to Gostomel and got lost.

A local resident, Olena, says that on February 27, they saw two Russian armored personnel carriers. Behind the huts are fields and woods, and it was there that the occupying forces were stationed. And on March 2, Myrotske was fired upon from the fields.

“I climbed on the roof and counted 120 BMD (landing combat vehicles – ed.), Which went through the field to the village. In one day – 120. And howitzers. And three days later, camouflaged sand-colored cars left, ”says Dmytro, Olena’s husband. 

Olena and Dmytro stayed in the village during the whole occupation. During that first shelling, the shell hit their summer kitchen, which eventually burned down. The shells damaged the summer house and destroyed the garage. Under these shellings, neighbors started a generator, a pump and rushed to put out fires, otherwise the houses nearby could also catch fire. 

Olena says that the Russians were going to Bucha from Myrotsky, so they didn’t damage their village too much. Locals believe that the enemy’s goal was to drive people into the cellars so that they would not stumble into the street and pass on data on the movement of equipment. They succeeded – they say that during the occupation Myrotsky’s inhabitants hardly went to the village.

“They said: ‘Whoever goes outside, we will shoot to defeat.’ Everyone was sitting in the basement, ”says Dmytro.

To go to the neighbors, Elena and her husband punched a hole in the fence to the neighbors, and so, out of sight of the Russian military, the yards went to each other.

According to village head Oleksandr Derevynsky, two-thirds of the people left the village during the occupation. A total of 14 people died or disappeared in the village. Some of them were identified in mass graves recently found by police. Only one 90-year-old grandfather is missing, who went on foot to a nearby village but never showed up. One man died when a Russian shell hit his house.