"Caught on Camera, Traced by Phone: The Russian
Military Unit That Killed Dozens in Bucha"
Source: The New York Times
Date of Publication: December 22nd, 2022
When videos and photos emerged in April showing bodies of dozens of civilians strewn
along a street in Bucha,
Ukrainians and the rest of the world voiced horror and outrage.
This generalizes the world's view trying to create a united stand with Ukraine, which undermines doubts or suspicions people may have.
But in Russia, officials had a completely different reaction: denial.
President Vladimir V. Putin dismissed the gruesome scene as “a provocation,” and
claimed that the Russian Army had nothing to do with it.
But an eight-month visual investigation by The New York Times concluded that the
perpetrators of the massacre along Yablunska Street were Russian paratroopers from the 234th Air Assault Regiment led by Lt. Col. Artyom Gorodilov.
The evidence shows that the killings were part of a deliberate and systematic effort to
ruthlessly secure a route to the capital, Kyiv. Soldiers interrogated and executed unarmed men of fighting age, and killed people who unwittingly crossed their paths — whether it was children fleeing with their families, locals hoping to find groceries or people simply trying to get back home on their bicycles.
Exclusive government records from Ukraine
could lead to bias in evidence because Ukrainian
officials provide Ukraine's stance and evidence,
while they did not obtain Russia's perspective
on the matter.
Exclusive phone records, documents, interviews and thousands of hours of video reveal how a Russian paratrooper unit killed dozens of people on one street in March. Here are some of the main takeaways of the investigation.
While various military units were present in Bucha — and the death toll across the city
reached over 400 — The Times identified the 234th Regiment, a paratrooper unit based
in the city of Pskov in western Russia, as the main culprit in the Yablunska Street killings.
Airborne units like this are considered some of the best trained and equipped in the Russian military.
Evidence of the 234th’s involvement includes military equipment, uniform badges, radio chatter and packing slips on munition crates. Military experts from Janes and the Institute for the Study of War provided insights about Russian armored vehicles and their markings as well as tactical operations seen in the visual evidence.
Phone Records as Digital Fingerprints
Residents in Bucha said that when Russian soldiers interrogated them, they often seized
their phones. Suspecting the soldiers may also have taken the phones of victims, our reporters obtained from Ukrainian authorities a database of all calls and messages placed from the Bucha region to Russia during March. As we interviewed victims’ relatives, we collected their phone numbers and checked if they were in the database.
A chilling pattern emerged: soldiers routinely used the phones of victims to call home to
Russia, often only hours after they were killed.
Again, it does not provide the full story or the fact that these actions could have been the fault of rogue soldiers acting against authority.
By analyzing the phone numbers dialed by Russian soldiers and uncovering social media
profiles associated with their family members, The Times confirmed the identity of two dozen paratroopers as members of the 234th Regiment.
In many cases, we interviewed their relatives and spoke to some of the soldiers themselves, two of whom confirmed they were in the 234th and served in Bucha.
We cross-referenced our findings with personal data sourced from leaked and official Russian databases provided by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit group focused on global security.
Mothers, Fathers, Children: Ordinary Citizens as Victims
The Times identified — for the first time — three dozen people who were killed along
Yablunska Street in March. We reviewed death certificates for most of these victims,
and the predominant cause of death was gunshot wounds.
The victims were residents of Bucha or neighboring towns, from all ages and professions.
This humanizes the victims - an important journalistic goal in this article. It also does not allow or include a Russian explanation for the
casualties.
Among the victims killed by Russian paratroopers were 52-year-old Tamila
Mishchenko and her 14-year-old daughter, Anna, on March 5. They were among four women fleeing Bucha when Russian soldiers fired on their blue minivan.
Nearly all the victims we identified on Yablunska Street were civilians or Ukrainian P.O.W.s. Killing them could be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court and deemed war crimes under international humanitarian law.
Because of their systematic and widespread nature, the killings in Bucha could also amount to crimes against humanity. Russia has not joined the I.C.C. and is unlikely to cooperate on any potential future cases that involve Russian soldiers.
The Killings Were Not Random Acts of Violence
The victims on Yablunska Street did not die in the crossfire between Russian and Ukrainian forces, nor were they mistakenly shot in the fog of war.
The word 'ruthless' is used to add an emotional undertone to the statement without leaving room for other interpretations.
Our investigation shows that Russian troops intentionally killed them,
Re-enforces one sidedness as there is no evidence to back that claim provided. Also no opposing argument.
apparently as part of a systematic “clearing” operation to secure the path to the capital.
Dereliction in the Chain of Command
Lt. Col. Artyom Gorodilov, the regiment commander at the helm of the 234th, oversaw
operations of the paratrooper unit in Bucha. Times investigators obtained documents that confirmed the call sign he used when communicating over the radio with his troops.
Security cameras along Yablunska Street captured some of this radio chatter, establishing that Lt. Col. Gorodilov was in command, and two soldiers in the 234th who served in Bucha confirmed in interviews that he was there.
After Russian troops retreated from the Kyiv region, Lt. Col. Gorodilov received a promotion to colonel in April from the then-head of the airborne forces, Col. Gen. Andrey Serdyukov. The ceremony was held days after the shocking images from Bucha emerged.
Neither General Serdyukov nor Colonel Gorodilov’s immediate superior at the time, Maj. Gen. Sergey Chubarykin, has publicly announced any investigations into the carnage in the town despite the global outrage over the images. As superior officers, they ultimately answer for the actions of the forces under their command.
By neither stopping nor investigating the atrocities in Bucha, they could ultimately bear
responsibility for them.
This statement attempts to limit the reader from thinking about other possibilities such as
insufficient evidence or
complexities in the chain of command.
The Russian Ministry of Defense, the Russian Embassy in Washington and Colonel Gorodilov did not respond to requests for comment.
The word denial is loaded and does not allow any room to present Russia's argument.
The statement portrays Putin's response as
dismissive, although denial is a common response by governments to war crimes they may have committed. The New York Times
could have elaborated on why Putin thought it
was a 'provocation'. The writer also uses words
like 'gruesome' to invoke emotion.
This subheading assumes the evidence is definitive.
The statement eliminates the possibility of a
mistake or an accident. This was probably
done in the hope of framing the killings as
systematic. Although the evidence is strong, it
could be considered biased as no legal
proceedings confirmed the evidence.