Burned corpses and cars are seen on the road in Kyiv Oblast on April 2, 2022. (Getty Images)
April 4 marks 40 days of Russia's barbarous war in Ukraine.
The extent of Russia's cruelty against Ukrainians, however, was discovered just two days ago.
On April 2, Ukrainian forces regained control of Bucha, a town northwest of Kyiv, revealing the many horrific atrocities of Russia's weeks-long occupation.
Hundreds of civilian residents were found dead on the streets, by their homes and in mass graves.
Following one of the darkest days of the war, one that truly shocked the Ukrainian nation and the whole world, President Volodymyr Zelensky gave the kind of address that "presidents don't usually give."
"Concentrated evil has come to our land," he said. "Murderers, butchers, rapists, looters, who call themselves an army and who deserve only to die after what they have done."
Since Moscow unleashed its all-out war on Ukraine on Feb. 24, at least 1,232 civilian Ukrainians have been killed, according to the United Nations. The actual figures, however, are expected to be much higher, as casualties from front-line areas aren't counted due to a lack of data.
At least 161 children have been killed and 264 injured by Russia's war, according to Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office.
Bodies lie on a street in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, as Ukrainian forces retook control of the town on April 2, 2022 following weeks of Russian occupation. (AFP via Getty Images)A cyclist rides past buildings on fire following an artillery fire in Kharkiv, a regional capital in northeastern Ukraine, on March 25, 2022. (AFP/Getty Images)Rescuers remove rubble from the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration building where at least 35 people were killed by a Russian cruise missile attack on April 1, 2022, in Mykolaiv, a regional capital in southern Ukraine. (The Washington Post/Getty Images)A partially buried body is seen in a mass grave in the town of Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, on April 3, 2022. Hundreds of killed civilians were found in the town after Ukrainian forces retook it following weeks of Russian occupation. (AFP/Getty Images)President Volodymyr Zelensky (C) walks in the town of Bucha, just northwest of Kyiv, the site of Russia's massacre of civilian residents, on April 4, 2022. (AFP/Getty Images)Communal workers and volunteers build a protective structure around a monument to the poet Taras Shevchenko in Kyiv on April 3, 2022. (Getty Images)A woman hugs a volunteer fighting with the Territorial Defense Force after the Russian troop withdrawal from the Nova Basan village in Chernihiv Oblast on April 1, 2022. (Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the 64th Annual Grammy Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 3, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Getty Images for The Recording Academy)The newlyweds, medical volunteers Nastya Gracheva and Anton Sokolov, pose for a photograph in a ruined courtyard of a shopping and business complex in central Kharkiv on April 3, 2022. (AFP/Getty Images)A resident walks in front of a destroyed building in Trostyanets, Sumy Oblast, on March 29, 2022. (AFP via Getty Images)U.S. President Joe Biden kisses a child while meeting refugees of Russia's war against Ukraine at PGE Narodowy Stadium in Warsaw, Poland on March 26, 2022. (AFP/Getty Images)An ostrich walks on the destroyed enclosure at an eco-park in Yasnohorodka, a village north of Kyiv on April 2, 2022. (AFP/Getty Images)A young girl sits on a suitcase at a train station in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, on April 3, 2022. (AFP/Getty Images)A destroyed column of Russia's military vehicles is seen on the highway near Buzova village in Kyiv Oblast on April 3, 2022. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)The family of Ukrainian soldier Ivan Lipskiy grieves at his casket during a funeral of five Ukrainian soldiers in Odesa on March 29, 2022. Lipskiy was killed on March 18 during a Russian air strike that hit the 36th Ukrainian Naval Infantry Brigade killing more than 40 Ukrainian soldiers in Mykolaiv. (The Washington Post/Getty Images)
The event had been authorized by Moscow authorities, but detentions reportedly intensified as the rally was ending and participants shifted toward more directly anti-Kremlin slogans.
Kharkiv has also faced repeated attacks with other Russian aerial weapons in recent days. On Oct. 2, Russian glide bombs struck the city’s Slobidskyi and Nemyshlianskyi districts, killing two women and injuring 36 people, including three children.
The strike comes just two days after another Russian drone hit an energy facility in the region’s Lubny district, leaving around 6,000 consumers without electricity.
"The American side is currently in contact with Ukraine and Russia and is proposing to hold some kind of meeting at the technical level in a trilateral format by the end of October," the president said.
"Fifty-one percent of the damaged oil refining capacity is a significant blow to the enemy's economy, to its ability to wage aggression, and to supply its military formations," Defense Minister Yevhen Khmara said Oct. 4.
The measures come after Darya Shipilova, a lab technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Shelekhov, died after reportedly contracting plague on Oct. 2.
The president's comments come a week after he warned that Moscow is preparing to recruit another 10,000 North Korean military personnel to fight alongside Russian troops against Ukraine.
"I congratulate Andris Kulbergs on his convincing victory in the parliamentary elections in Latvia ... Ukraine deeply appreciates Latvia's unwavering friendship and support," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Oct. 4.
Drones operated by the SBU's Alpha special operations unit hit a Su-35 multirole fighter and a Su-34 fighter-bomber at the airfield, located around 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Ukrainian territory.
The operation was the second large-scale drone delivery to the occupied city, where residents have faced severe shortages of food, water, and medicine.
In this report, the Kyiv Independent’s Asami Terajima and Nick Allard join a Ukrainian volunteer air defense team defending Kyiv as Russia intensifies its drone attacks on the capital.
From Oct. 1 to Oct. 3, Kyiv's Southern and Northern bridges were targeted in multiple Russian drone strikes amid an intensifying campaign against infrastructure in the capital.
This story exists because readers chose to back it. Behind it is a newsroom that will not look away — and a community of people who make that possible. It's thanks to 35,000 members that our reporting stays free for everyone to read, and we can continue our reporting. Will you be one of them?
on Google
