The bleak mark of 29 days of Russian occupation on the outskirts of kyiv

That was the surreal beginning of the Russian occupation of Bucha for the Klimparski family, which began on March 3 and lasted until this same Thursday, the 31st, when the city’s mayor declared it “liberated.” And it is that in Ukraine There is not NATO military bases. In fact, the country does not even belong to the Atlantic Allianceoh, no matter how much Vladimir Putin raised that possibility -already ruled out by all parties- as one of the arguments for justify the invasion which is destroying entire regions of Ukraine. To the Klimparskis, his explanations were useless. More of 40 russian military they settled in his villa for almost a month while they made life in the basement, only going out occasionally.

“They didn’t treat us badly, but we passed very afraid. At night they locked us up because they feared that the townspeople would attack them,” says Leonid in front of a long queue of neighbors waiting to collect the food bags who has brought to the city a small convoy of the World Central Kitchenthe organization founded on Spanish chef Jose Andres, who led the expedition to the beaten streets of Bucha and Irpin on Saturday. EL PERIÓDICO joined the mission together with a journalist from Radio Nacional de España, just two days after the last Kremlin troops withdrew from this dormitory town severely punished by the intense fighting of the last five weeks.

The scars are everywhere. A burnt russian tank it lies on the road, next to rows of cars turned into heaps of scrap metal. The ammo shells are piled up along the sidewalks and, throughout the city, there are destroyed houses, burned businesses and apartment blocks with large holes in the facades. The typology of the disaster, confirmed by the Ukrainian military, suggests that the battle for the western outskirts of kyiv has essentially been rid of artillery, mortars and howitzers.

There aren’t too many signs that the russian aviation have played an important role. And it is that, although the destruction is generalized and bloody in some points, it does not reach the barbarian dimensions that Russian warplanes and the Syrian regime caused in Aleppo or the one that the Israeli Army left in the south lebanon and the Shiite neighborhoods of Beirut in 2006.

On the road between Irpin and Bucha, a yellow school bus lies stamped against a fence. And not far from there, two vehicles appear with the word ‘kids’ written on the sides and the body sprayed with bullets. There appears to be no one inside, although signs of war crimes they are numerous. A video allegedly taken in Bucha is circulating on social networks in which a car goes dodging through the mist corpses lying on the roadapparently civilians

In another neighborhood in southern Bucha, known as the Glass factoryAlexei assures that the Russian troops installed in the neighborhood killed several unarmed civilians in cold blood. “I myself have buried three of them,” says Alexei, a 42-year-old neighbor, who does not want to give his last name. “A man was having coffee on that bench, next to our apartment block, and a soldier walked up to him and shot him without saying a word.”

Alexei assures that some bodies have been buried in the frigid gardens of the neighborhood, where hardly any windows remain intact. Also the water tower, a brick tower with a blackened and holed head, was attacked by a tank, according to residents. “When they arrived they were friendly, but little by little they became more aggressive. They systematically shot at cars and they gave orders that only the women should go out to collect water.

Several neighbors assure that the soldiers went looking for Donbas ex-combatantsthe separatist region that rose up in arms in 2014 with the support of the Kremlin, shortly after the Maidan revolt encouraged by the West to depose the last pro-Russian president of Ukraine.

“Here in this neighborhood they found seven and killed them,” says Alexei along with several businesses with the broken windows and its interior looted. Residents maintain that Russian soldiers were the first to surrender to the pillage. Not only from the shops, but also from some houses, from which they would have taken even the televisions and other appliances. But later it was the neighbors themselves who emptied the remains of the stores because they had to survive during the month of occupation with what little they had at home. Houses without water, electricity, gas or heating.

The bonfires with small steaming iron pots continued this Saturday at the doors of the buildings. And several neighbors acknowledged that they do not know exactly how the Battle of Bucha because they have spent most of their time hiding in the basements of houses. They only went out to collect water, cut firewood and cook outdoors. “It has been horrible, we lived hidden underground, there was no food or medicine,” says Tatiana, a 54-year-old woman who appears to be in her 80s. Before leaving, with a dazed look of extreme confusion, she asks: “ You know if the Russians are going to come back? I say this because this time we won’t be able to hold out.”