Ukraine war: Survivors describe Russian army atrocities in special report

After witnessing the first two weeks of the war in Ukraine, I went back to the region of Kyiv a month later with our cameraman Thierry Winn, to find a very different atmosphere.

Life was slowly resuming in the Ukrainian capital following the retreat of Russian troops from the region only a fortnight earlier. I knew the sight of people walking the streets again, and the bright bed of tulips blooming in Maidan Square would contrast starkly with what awaited me on the outskirts of the city. 

I had come back to document alleged war crimes in the area. The scale of destruction was startling. What used to be peaceful suburbs and villages had been turned into a heap of ruin, behind which lay the open wounds of those who had lived through weeks of horror.

I met Sasha in the devastated town of Irpin, a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian offensive. Irpin is located at the gates of the capital and Sasha walked me through the nightmare he had endured in his neighbourhood, describing the summary executions of several of the residents. A shadow overcame his eyes when he showed me the spot where he had witnessed his friend, Sania, being shot in the head by a Russian soldier. It would have been Sania’s birthday that day.

The accounts of those who wanted the world to know their stories grew only more sinister as I followed my journey through the unspeakable. In Borodyanka, one of the most heavily bombed towns on the outskirts of Kyiv, searches were still continuing for bodies crushed under collapsed buildings. 

“There were children, grandmothers, they were everywhere”, roared Sasha, showing me the rubble under which he had extricated bodies. In another part of the city, I witnessed one of the many exhumations of bodies of civilians