Bucha couple says they were targeted by Russian soldiers because of relatives serving in Ukraine army

A couple in Bucha said they were targeted by Russians for being associated with a soldier serving in the Ukrainian army, as more stories of abuse emerge from the recently liberated town.

Bucha, situated just 6km away from capital Kyiv, was liberated on 31 March after weeks of Russian control as residents continue to describe the horror they faced before Russia’s retreat.

Mykhola and Viktoria, a couple who lived in the town, told the German tabloid BILD that the Russian soldiers knew their address, claiming that it was part of a “list” used by them to target relatives of soldiers serving the Ukrainian army.

“I took off my address plate because some friends told me that they have some lists,” Mykhola said, according to a tweet by Journalist Paul Ronzheimer who interviewed the couple.

“I don’t know where they got this lists from. They came six times for me,” he further says. “My nephew is in the UA army and the sister of my wife is doing her service. They came to arrest me six times.”

Mr Ronzheimer tweeted that Russian soldiers talked to their neighbours and asked about the couple. The couple said they were hiding in the attic when Russian soldiers came to their home.

“I was lucky I managed to hide in the attic with my wife. They shot 8 bullets in the door in the gates. Took off the gates and started to shoot in our kitchen,” the couple said, according to the translation.

“We were on the floor, we crawled and managed to go up to the attic. They broke and crashed everything in the house.“

“They also threw a hand grenade in our cellar... they were looking for us for three weeks,” Mr Mykhola said. “We were hiding all the time we lived in the shed. We didn’t show our nose outside for three weeks.”

“They didn’t knock on the door, they immediately opened fire,” Ms Viktoria said according to the translation.

An off-camera translator says in the video: “That was the most terrifying moment ... when they were hiding here. They were hoping the Russians would not find them.”

“And they were sitting here and they heard them crashing and smashing everything in the house. And then they heard the explosion from the grenade, and then one of the soldiers said to the other, ‘Nikolai, it’s clear here, let’s go,” the translator further describes.

Bucha has become the centre of Ukraine’s demand for investigating Russia for war crimes after the killings of nearly 300 people who were buried in mass graves, which the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has described as an act of genocide by Russia.

Shocking images and testimonies of the massacre have led to international condemnation from the United Nations, the European Union and many other organisations.