In a corner of the cemetery in the town of Borodyanka, the bodies of three men were buried a year ago, without anyone knowing, in the town located 55 kilometers northwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. The three men, of whom the police have only preliminarily identified one, have become the latest confirmed civilian casualties during the Russian forces' advance towards Kyiv last spring. Russia's failed attempt to quickly seize the Ukrainian capital resulted in the deaths of at least 1,370 civilians before being repelled by the Ukrainian army, according to Ukrainian officials. The fate of 278 residents of the Kyiv region, which has an estimated population of 1.8 million, remains unknown, and after a year, finding them or their remains has grown more difficult. Fourteen mass graves were discovered earlier, and police say it is likely that the remaining bodies are within buildings that were bombed and charred in towns or in the dense pine forests surrounding them.
The issue highlights the extent of civilian suffering around Kyiv and the difficulty in locating remains in a heavily affected region from which many have fled. It is also possible that some of the missing are still alive. Andriy Nebytov, the police chief of the Kyiv region, stated on Thursday that one resident found one of the three buried in Borodyanka on March 8 of last year, shot in the head behind the wheel of a burned car. Nebytov added that the same person found the two others on the road, who were also shot. The man buried the three victims before traveling abroad and only reported their case upon his return a year later. Nebytov told reporters, "Sometimes they find it hard to describe the brutality of the Russian army... As time passes, it becomes more difficult for us to find these bodies."
The police carefully excavated the remains from the brown sandy soil in the Borodyanka cemetery. Some of the most brutal wartime massacres occurred near Kyiv in the first weeks of the invasion, with hundreds killed in Borodyanka and the nearby towns of Bucha and Irpin. Nebytov stated that among the 1,370 deaths due to the Russian invasion in the Kyiv region, around 700 were shot, approximately 350 died from shelling, and the rest died due to inability to receive medical assistance. According to Reuters, "More than 71,000 war crimes have been reported as allegedly committed in Ukraine since the Russian invasion."
