In Boutcha, martyr city of Ukraine: “Those who survived see the world differently”

In the shadow of the Saint-Andrew church, in the middle of a vacant lot in the heart of Boutcha, the grass has grown back. Even on earth mounds about 1 meter high. A year ago, for weeks, investigators turned this peaceful landscape to extract from the ground dozens of corpses, buried hastily during the occupation of the Russian army, in March 2022.

419 civilian casualties were recorded. “But we still have dozens of unidentified bodies, points out the deputy mayor, Mykhailyna Storyk-Shkarivska, walking near the church. Often, the Russians killed the men with a bullet in the head, from behind, which makes identification by face nearly impossible.” By pronouncing these words, the chosen one, with already very white skin, turns pale again.

90% of the inhabitants have returned

Upon his release on March 31, 2022, Boutcha, occupied for almost a month, became the symbol of the atrocities committed by the Russian army in Ukraine. Corpses of civilians are piling up in the streets, mass graves are quickly discovered. “There were graves everywhere in the gardens, resumes Mykhailyna Storyk-Shkarivska. The inhabitants tried to bury their neighbors and their friends at home, without going out, so as not to be killed themselves.” Pure horror, forty-five minutes by car from kyiv.

A year later, the city of 40,000 inhabitants is trying to rebuild itself. Traces of bullets remain visible on the walls of the church, the roofs of several houses are still on the ground. But life resumed. 90% of the inhabitants have returned, according to the authorities. Today, it is above all a question of healing the spirits, traumatized by the abuses of the Russian army. “Those who survived see the world differently,” says Dmytro Hapchenko, a civil servant who stayed in Boutcha for two weeks under occupation, before managing to escape after being arrested. Every day, every night, this big guy with a salt-and-pepper beard thinks back to when Russian soldiers locked him in a cellar, beat him up, then threatened to take him into the woods to shoot him. “I told myself that my body would never be found”, breathes the father of the family.

1984by Orwell, the most popular book in town

At the municipal library, ravaged by Russian soldiers then renovated thanks to associations, the manager does not hesitate long before showing us the most borrowed book for a year: she brandishes 1984, by George Orwell, who describes a dictatorial dystopia in a city subjected to merciless repression. Like a mirror of the totalitarian nightmare experienced by the inhabitants of Boutcha.

It is in this building that the mayor, Anatoliy Fedoruk, joins us. At 51, this little Ukrainian with a well-stocked gray beard has spent half his life at the head of the city. He had to leave it after nine days of occupation, on March 12, 2022. “Then the Russians started shooting at everything that moved,” sighs the chosen one, in his deep and calm voice. “In Boutcha, Russian barbarism has affected every family, every street, every house, continues Anatoliy Fedoruk. It is still difficult to speak to the victims, in the face of massive trauma. Teams of psychologists are working with them, but this process will take time. time, probably decades and decades. In our opinion, the best way to heal will be to renovate and modernize the city.”

The martyred city has received dozens of heads of state, and donations are pouring in from all over the world. According to the mayor, Boutcha has already received 4.5 million euros for its reconstruction. More than a third of the damaged buildings have been repaired, even if the city remains far from the account, with damage estimated at 15 million euros. “Before the invasion, we were a community in full development, with a positive demographic balance, recalls Anatoliy Fedoruk. The war changed everything. Many families had to flee, women gave birth abroad… We hope that these mothers, and their children, will soon return to Boutcha.”

Darya didn’t hesitate long before coming back. From the summer, a few weeks after the withdrawal of the Russians. “It’s my home, quite simply,” smiles this blonde with long hair, in her thirties. She had left her hometown in a hurry, three days after the arrival of the Russian army. With her elderly mother and her husband, they left on foot for about ten kilometers, along the railway line, before finding the Ukrainian forces. “At the time, we knew what they did to men of fighting age, like my husband, Darya recalls, mimicking a gun. We did not yet know what they did to women…” At the release, hundreds of cases of rape have been reported.

Boutcha’s healing will also go through justice. As soon as the liberation, battalions of investigators archived and traced the crimes committed by the Russians, in order to identify those responsible and to judge them one day. “I made sure that [le ministre russe] Sergei Lavrov passes through Boucha when he will be taken to the International Criminal Court”, indicates the mayor, Anatoliy Fedoruk, without flinching. His deputy, Mykhailyna Storyk-Shkarivska, recalls that dozens of inhabitants remain missing. “The Russians accused the Ukrainian civilians to be linked to the army, they are their spoils of war, and some are still in prison in Russia,” she said.

At the foot of the Saint-Andrew church, the elected municipal representative nevertheless manages to project herself. She shows us the images of a project imagined by local architects: a memorial for the victims of Boutcha. “Under the church, the atmosphere of the occupation will be restored, and we will make a public space outside, with lakes and a cinema,” she describes enthusiastically. For now, the city has neither the budget nor the forces to build this memorial. But, in his eyes, the glimmer of hope. That of getting out of the Russian nightmare.