Cruelty symbol. Two months after the Russian withdrawal, the city is restoring its services and opening shops
Bucha, which has become one of the scenes of the horrors caused by Vladimir Putin’s forces, is returning to some normality two months after Moscow’s withdrawal from the Kiev region in late March. The city of martyrs is “gradually coming to life”, Taras Shapravski, secretary of the Bucha city council, celebrates.
Now all services involved in the resumption of gas, water and electricity supply are operating at full capacity, the municipal official says, albeit not in all micro-districts of the region. Gas, water and electricity have already reached more than ‘80% of the houses’, he says.
Over time, businesses have also reopened. Some after being completely destroyed after the Russian offensive, as is the case with a consultancy center for small and medium-sized companies. Other businesses such as bakeries and clothing stores have also reopened. Rozetka, the nation’s largest online retailer, has followed suit, already providing Bucha residents with everything from food to technology.
Although they continue, the images of the horrors that took place in this city, a symbol of Russian atrocities in Ukraine, will be stored in the minds of the citizens. But Canadian artist Ivanka Siolkovska has come up with a way to remove that trail. How? Fences, gates and walls with huge bullet holes are turning into large prints of ‘bright flowers’ all over the city, the city council says.
This step forward brings light and color to the darkness left behind by the Kremlin troops. The trail of corpses is counted by the hundreds. Authorities have completed the exhumation of the bodies in mass graves and have confirmed the deaths of more than 400 civilians. The identification process was “very difficult”. Both for relatives and for researchers. “Some fainted during the excavation,” they say of the Ukrainian Consistory.
The investigation into the Bucha massacre revealed that most people were shot in the head. “Some had up to five gunshot wounds. Many had signs of torture and others of rape,” Shapravski laments. From a communal grave near the church, 117 bodies were exhumed, 30 of which were women and two children aged 10 and 4. “It was very difficult”.
Despite recent and hard memories, life in this city continues, but on dangerous ground. Although not as much as when the Russian forces besieged the area with constant attacks. After its withdrawal, Moscow left a tail of unexploded mines in the streets of Bucha. “Explosives experts and sappers examined buildings and public roads. But we do not recommend going through greenery, there may be explosive objects in the bushes,” explains the municipal secretary. More than 4,000 explosives were found in one day.
At this time, walking in the area is dangerous, so the government team is advising residents not to return just yet. A neighbor has been kept deaf and has returned to his apartment, where he has found two unexploded shells. But he hasn’t been the only one. Another neighbor, who came home, found a mine in a room that the residents had placed a weight on. «The invaders left a ‘gift’ for the owners: they put a peso in a mine. If you pick it up, the device explodes,” says one of the sappers. “We have dozens of specific apps for these situations,” Shapravski says.
This is not the only city to be martyred during the invasion. The war has also left its cruel mark on Borodianka, where little by little intensive restoration work is being carried out for a return to normalcy. “The water supply is being restored, but there are still problems with the wiring to the apartments,” explains Grigory Yerko, acting head of the city, where the water supply was significantly damaged after the bombing. Nine houses have been confirmed to have been completely destroyed and 32 damaged at this location.
Source: La Verdad
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