“Hunting for people in Bucha. As the murder of civilians, committed by the Russians in the Kyiv region, is a report of NV on March 31, 08:29 To share: police are working to establish persons of Russian military responsible for committing the murder of civilians in Bucha in 2022 (photo: National Police of Ukraine). 2022, managed to identify the National Police as a state”, – WRITE ON: ua.news
Police officers are working to identify Russian military persons responsible for the commission of civilians in Bucha in 2022 (photo: National Police of Ukraine)
More than 2.5 thousand Russian military, probably involved in the murder of civilians in Bucha in 2022, was identified by the National Police as of March 2025. Of these, 34 people were declared suspicions, of which Sima-on the murder of 24 people. Criminal proceedings have been sent to the court, one of which is carried out on the field of 17 accused of killing 12 persons. In order for this result to become possible, law enforcement officers did a huge job.
Police
“We managed to make almost impossible – to place the limits of the zones of responsibility of each company of Russian soldiers, which was in Bucha in that period,” says Ivan Dulkai, a senior investigator in particularly important cases of the investigation department of crimes committed in the conditions of armed conflict of the Chief Investigation Department of Ukraine. The special investigative team he heads is engaged in the investigation of war crimes committed by the Russian military during the offensive of the Kyiv region in February-March 2022.
This work is carried out in the coordination and interaction with the Office of the Prosecutor General, as well as with the Department of Combating Crime, committed in the conditions of armed conflict of the Attorney General’s office.
Ivan Dulkai and his colleagues from the National Police were permitted to investigate such crimes in 2023. Before that, this was done by the Security Service of Ukraine. Having worked out the materials of the preliminary investigation, law enforcement officers discovered hundreds of facts of murders civilians and abuse of them. Yes, it was on the example of Bucha, the main investigative department of the NPS began to develop the most effective practices of investigation of mass military crimes that the Russians committed during the advance and occupation of settlements.
“We started analyzing those materials that relate to murders. When received criminal proceedings had close 60 unidentified bodies. Our task was to establish people to return these bodies to their families. At the same time, there were a large number of criminal proceedings against missing during the offensive of the Russians to the Kyiv region, ”says Ivan Dulkay.
We meet with him in the office where his department works, in the building of the Buchan district state administration. Materials are hung on the walls: printed pictures of terrain, maps, photos. The table behind which the Dulkay sits, covered with a large map of the city of Bucha – on it the interlocutor shows where the Russians started the offensive in February 2022, how the enemy groups were moving, where they committed the highest number of crimes, and where they retreated later.
The identification of unknowns helped the data obtained from mobile phones: to whom the last one or another person from which location, etc. was helpful. And also-DNA examination, in particular through the exhumation of bodies. At this point, the number of molecular genetic conclusions obtained from different people is both the dead and their relatives, whose DNA was needed for comparison of samples-is more than 1 thousand, says Ivan Dulkai.
Working on establishing the chronology of events that took place during the occupation, law enforcement officers identified key military units of the Russian Federation that entered the territory of Bucha. The main unit committed by the crimes is 234th Regiment of the 76th Guards Airborne Assault Division. It was they who came on March 3, 2022 on the Street of Slozavodsk and Yablunsk, and for the first two days were based on the territory of the enterprise Agrobudpostach.
Thanks to the investigation, it has already been held in absentia to justice the commander of the intelligence platoon, Lieutenant Arteom Taryev, commander of the 76th Airborne and assault Division of the Russian Federation. In particular, he is called responsible for Irina Filkina’s death – “women with red manicure”. On March 5, 2022, she turned on a bicycle on the street. Yablunsk, where she was shot by a column of Russian military.
“It is important that not only performers are held accountable – that is, those who killed the residents of Bucha, but also the commanders who gave their subordinate criminal orders,” – emphasizes Ivan Dulkay.
Today, the National Police managed to reveal about 70 murders, as well as to establish more than 30 facts of ill -treatment: threats, intimidation, beating with hands, legs and various objects, binding and applying knife wounds, using civilians as a living shield, keeping in inhumane conditions – without lighting, access to water. SNPK.
Photos and videos that have been preserved since 2022, are played an important role in establishing the crimes involved in the commission of crimes, which have been preserved since 2022, the video fixation chambers installed in the city that have filmed the arrival of the Russians. Also analyzed carefully found at the places of committing crimes of a round, sleeves, installed samples of weapons used by the Russian military.
“Such an analysis allows you to prove the use of one weapon to carry out several killings, and therefore the probable involvement of one person in committing several crimes,” says Ivan Dulkai.
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Witnesses
A resident of the nine -storey building on the street. Arsen Bulgarev’s water supply in Bucha is one of those whose testimony helped law enforcement agencies to establish weapons used for several crimes. On March 9, 2022, Bulgarev left the city where his mother lives, to his home to take food and Paverbank – electricity disappeared in the city that day.
On the road he met a friend. When they left the apartment, they saw the Russians. Those brought men into one of the neighboring apartments, forced to undress and show tattoos, kept under sight. Subsequently, they were transferred to another room – there were divided.
“I was hit on my head. They began to ask where the Ukrainian troops stand. I said I don’t know. Next, I understand, the main one came. He ordered to go to the street. Station, a place near the Novus store – there were burned Russian tanks, and near them were the corpses of the Russians, ” – recalls Arsen Bulgarian in communication with NV. Then he had to do what the Russians ordered. When he returned, he drew a scheme where the bodies lie. The next order of the Russians was to return to place and take out the corpses from there. He did it with another Ukrainian, which was captured by the Russians – Maxim Shepev. Subsequently, law enforcement officers will establish that the cheers were beaten and tortured with a kitchen hammer to reflect meat.
Bulgarev and Shepev were forced to give the Russians personal belongings. They were brought into the basement of one of the private homes on the street. Tap, where two people were already. One of them said that he was sitting there a week, the other – four or five days. The next day they were released, brought on military equipment to almost the station and released.
“Later, Arsen Bulgarev found in his apartment the balls and sleeves, which he handed over to the police. These samples coincided with the bullets found at the site of the murder of another civilian in their own apartment in the same house, ”Ivan Dulkay said.
Together with it we move on the street. Glass. There are several cases of killings of local residents of the Russian Army of the Russian Federation. In particular, five burned bodies found in one of the garages are known. Probably, before setting on fire, people who were already dead at that time poured gasoline – expertise found traces of petroleum products. The persons of the three killed managed to identify.
“I remember saw something white from the garage. I thought, maybe it’s a dog. And it was the head, ”-recalls the garage owner, 81-year-old Melania Davidenko in the spring of 2022. The woman lives in one of the houses on the street. Glass. She just went by when she saw us with the police at the garages, and stopped for a short time to talk. When asked by militiamen, why, in her opinion, the Russian military behaved so cruelly about civilians, answers briefly: “Who knows them? It’s Russian. “
Immediately, on a glass factory, a few more civilians were killed. Among them is Valentina Sen, who worked as a courtyard. There was no light in the city, so the woman was preparing to eat on the street that day. Seeing the Russians, she ran to the entrance, but she was shot at the door.
Vasyl Chekan and Oleg Klimtsov, the military of the Russian Federation was shot by the garages – from the window of their apartment was observed by local resident Yuri Verkhovtsev. Outside was March 28, 2022, about 8 am. When the Russians disappeared from the yard, he buried the bodies shot in the forest planting nearby. Subsequently, this episode will be called hunting for people at a glass factory.
While Ivan Dulkay tells us details, his colleagues are conducting an investigative experiment: one of the police holds a wooden machine gun, and tries to reconstruct the events of eyewitnesses that day. Children play on the court in the yard. A girl who rides at a bicycle garages suddenly falls into the sand and laughs: as if nothing wrong here has never happened.
Relatives
Str. Ivan Franko in Bucha is a private sector near the railway, built up by various houses. Someone has an ordinary one -story hut, someone has a big brick house behind a high fence, and someone has a joint trim to several owners. But today it is one great crime.
In 2022, the Russian 4th airborne assault company was based here, whose servicemen carried out the so-called “Strilling »local residents. The occupiers checked people for any factors that could have suspected attempts to counteract the army of the Russian Federation, says Ivan Dulkay: “Civic position caused Russian military aggression, which made categorical decisions to kill. So at least 16 people were killed, several missing missing. ”
Brothers Victor and Yuri Pavlenka lived right by the railway. On an empty, overgrown shrub, there is still a two -storey building from a log. Both brothers were shot by the Russian military – their bodies were thrown into the waste ditch nearby.
Quite nearby – the yard where the family Shipilo lived: Tatiana, Vladimir and Andrew, as well as their relative Oleg Yarmolenko. All of them were also deprived of the lives of Russian servicemen. Tatiana Shipilo has worked as a teacher all her life and spoke exclusively in Ukrainian – probably, it worked for the Russians as an additional trigger. Windows are knocked out in the family, the door is open. In the yard lies garbage, glass, and a couple of someone’s black berets.
“In most places, additional reviews were conducted. We have marked the balls and sleeves that have remained since then, conducted numerous ballistic expertise, which identified seven units , machine guns, wines. It was found that the same crimes that had different time shades were attended by the same servicemen of the Russian Federation, ”says Ivan Dulkai. This testifies to the systematic and planning of the actions of the Russian military, he adds.
Behind the corner begins the street. Maxim Ridzanich, named after Hero of Ukraine, a serviceman of the Armed Forces and ATO participant, who died in the battle in Donetsk in 2015. In 2022, the inhabitants of this street also got into the field of view of the Russian military. Some of them were actually executed, such as the parents of a local resident Tatiana Naumova-Sergey and Lilia Sidorenko.
Tatiana, together with her husband and son, lived with her parents in the same territory, but in different homes. When the offensive of the Russians began, on the second attempt she and her family managed to leave the city. It happened on March 5, 2022. The parents refused to leave – they were convinced that the Russians would not touch ordinary pensioners.
“We did not want to leave for a long time, and then light and gas disappeared. In our first attempt we climbed on the street. Yablunka, because they had information that evacuation was evacuated due to Irpin. When they rose, Russian invaders opened a fire on us – I even remember the balls passed us. It was very scary, – Tatiana Naumova recalls that day. – In our second attempt together with girlfriend, we went on foot, through the bushes, near the river. So they came out. ”
Tatiana and her family returned to Bucha immediately after de -occupation – then she knew that her parents had died, and she wanted to bury them. Their burned bodies were found nearby, on the street. Frank. Tatiana Naumova’s father was a participant in the Revolution of Dignity on the Maidan – together with their mother, they had an active pro -Ukrainian position.
Police managed to restore the timeline of events that day. On March 22, 2022 a group of Russian military appeared in the yard. They stopped Lydia and Sergiy Sidorenko, as well as their neighbor. Then one military led the neighbor home, two others led Tatiana Naumov’s parents to the garage and forced him to open it.
“We went on foot, and our car remained in the garage. Under the car was a pit in which the parents staged something like a shelter – they were served there. The father showed them this garage. Apparently, they were looking for something there, ”Tatiana Naumova explains.
Further, her parents were in a nearby house – as and why, it is unknown. However, it was found out that it was there that a man and a woman were shot. Their bodies, as well as the bodies of the other four killed, were loaded on an armored car and taken to the wasteland at the intersection. They poured a combustible substance and set fire to.
“Whether it was a method to hide the bodies, or whether they are difficult to understand,” Ivan Dulkai comments on the situation. According to him, the police have already managed to identify the persons involved in the commission of this crime – now all evidence is systematized by his colleagues.
The global goal that Ukrainian law enforcement officers set themselves – not only in absentia but also in absentia, in particular, through cooperation with Interpol. In January 2025, the National Police presented a strategy for managing the investigation of international crimes committed in the context of an armed conflict developed with the support of the Council of Europe in January 2025.
“From 2014, people who are suspected of committing crimes under armed conflict could not be announced. Interpol denied it, calling it “political persecution.” The aforementioned strategy should demonstrate that there is no political component in this process, ”Ivan Dulkai explains.
This activity is already producing some results: Ukraine may be announced in the international search for persons accused of committing war crimes. This involves the mandatory detention of such persons and the use of a legal mechanism for holding liability. An example of how it should work in practice is the detention of one of the leaders of the Russian neo -Nazi military group Rusich Yana Petrovsky in Finland in 2023.
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“There is a person who has committed crimes and is on the international wanted list. It is delayed. We are denied extradition to Ukraine because we have an armed conflict. But this does not interfere with the country that detained it, to judge the offender in its territory, ”Ivan Dulkai said.
Such actions, he emphasize, will allow Ukraine to take important steps towards the return of justice, and to punish the perpetrators of the Russian military crimes: “We see how they treated people. It is about absolute depreciation of human life. It is evil, and it must be punished. ”