By Yousur Al-Hlou, Masha Froliak, Dmitriy Khavin, Christoph Koettl, Haley Willis, Alexander Cardia, Natalie Reneau and Malachy Browne - 23.12.22
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. 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.
We identified 36 of the Ukrainian victims killed along Yablunska Street. Read more about their final moments.
Times reporters spent months in Bucha after Russian forces withdrew, interviewing residents, collecting vast troves of security camera footage and obtaining exclusive records from government sources. In New York, Times investigators analyzed the materials and reconstructed the killings along this one street down to the minute. Some of the most damning evidence implicating the 234th included phone records and decoded call signs used by commanders on Russian radio channels.
It all points to a brazen and bloody campaign that turned a quiet suburban street into what residents now call the “road of death.”
Historically, journalists and investigators relied on a single photograph or video to expose wartime atrocities. In 1992, Time magazine published a photo of an emaciated prisoner in Bosnia on its cover. Almost 20 years later, a video captured the execution of captured Tamil Tiger fighters in the final days of Sri Lanka’s civil war.
What differentiates the evidence discovered in Bucha are the scale and detail that link a single unit and its commander to specific killings, with possible implications for ongoing investigations. The International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) is already investigating possible war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.
How The Times uses visuals to investigate the news. Our Visual Investigations team is made up of more than a dozen journalists who combine digital sleuthing and forensic analysis with traditional reporting to deconstruct news events. They have uncovered important details about drone strikes, police shootings and the Capitol riot.
“This kind of digital evidence is a sea change, especially compared to past investigations such as in the former Yugoslavia,” said Matthew Gillett, a senior lecturer at the University of Essex who previously worked at international criminal courts. “If any Ukraine cases end up at an international court such as the I.C.C., it has to have a significant video component.”
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.
A Paratrooper Unit Emerges as the Culprit
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.
For the full article in pdf, please click here and on the link below:
Reporting was contributed by Evan Hill, Ishaan Jhaveri and Julian Barnes.
Translations and research by Aleksandra Koroleva, Oksana Nesterenko and Milana Mazaeva.
Yousur Al-Hlou is a video journalist for The Times. @YousurAlhlou
Masha Froliak is a freelance producer working with the video team at The Times.
Dmitriy Khavin is a senior video editor with the Visual Investigations team. @dim109
Christoph Koettl is a Visual Investigations journalist with the Times video team, specializing in the analysis of satellite imagery, video and other visual evidence. He was part of a team that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for coverage of the civilian toll of U.S. air and drone strikes. @ckoettl
Haley Willis is a journalist with the Visual Investigations team. She has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes for investigations into the U.S. military’s dismissal of civilian casualty claims and police killings during traffic stops. @heytherehaley
Natalie Reneau is a video editor for the Visual Investigations team.
Malachy Browne is a senior story producer on the Visual Investigations team. His work has received four Emmys, and he shared in a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for reporting that showed Russian culpability in bombing hospitals in Syria. @malachybrowne •Facebook
Kommentare