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ZDVYZHIVKA, Ukraine — Even by the requirements of the vital navy officers who got here and went on this tiny village, the person strolling behind the Kamaz truck stood out.
Troopers offering safety peered from behind fences, their weapons bristling in each path. Two Ka-52 Alligator assault helicopters circled overhead, offering further cowl for Col. Gen. Alexander Chaiko as he escorted an assist convoy in March from the schoolhouse on Tsentralna Road that Russian officers commandeered as a headquarters.
Fifteen minutes away, within the village of Ozera, the lives of three males had been about to take a dramatic flip for the more serious. Whereas Chaiko was directing Russia’s assault on Kyiv from Zdvyzhivka, the boys had been interrogated and tortured by Russian troops after which shot within the backyard of a big home lower than a mile from the place the final now stood.
The deaths of those males had been a part of a sample of violence that left a whole lot of civilians crushed, tortured and executed in territory beneath Chaiko’s command.
This wasn’t the work of rogue troopers, an investigation by The Related Press and FRONTLINE exhibits. It was strategic and arranged brutality, perpetrated in areas that had been beneath tight Russian management the place navy officers — together with Chaiko himself — had been current.
This story is a part of an AP/FRONTLINE investigation that features the Battle Crimes Watch Ukraine interactive expertise and the documentary “Putin’s Assault on Ukraine: Documenting Battle Crimes” on PBS.
‘We Do Not Take Prisoners’
The map seized by Ukrainian forces is sort of as tall as a person. It’s frayed, creased and deeply outdated — describing cities as they not exist. A single purple line snakes down from Belarus, alongside the Western flank of the Dnieper River, by Chernobyl and in the direction of Zhuliany airport, in Kyiv.
Scrawled on the again are a date — Feb. 22, 2022 — and the stamp of a Russian navy unit — quantity 07264, Russia’s 76th Guards Airborne Assault Division.
At 7 a.m. the morning of Feb. 24, the commander of that division, Main Normal Sergei Chubarykin, ordered his troops to cross into Ukraine from Belarus and combat their option to Kyiv, Ukrainian prosecutors say. Chubarykin reported to Chaiko throughout the preliminary section of the warfare, two Ukrainian officers advised the AP and FRONTLINE.
Boy troopers — some not a lot larger than their weapons — perched on high of their tanks, shouting: “Now we are going to take Kyiv! Kyiv is ours!” witnesses mentioned.
The troops shifting towards the capitol had been ordered to dam and destroy “nationalist resistance,” in line with the Royal United Providers Institute, a London suppose tank that has reviewed copies of Russia’s battle plans. Troopers used lists compiled by Russian intelligence and carried out “zachistka” — cleaning operations — sweeping neighborhoods to establish and neutralize anybody who would possibly pose a risk.
On this picture from surveillance video, Russian troops take over Yablunska Road in Bucha, Ukraine on March 3, 2022, the place they arrange a headquarters throughout their month-long occupation. When Russian troops crossed from Belarus into Ukraine in late February, urgent towards Kyiv, they had been ordered to dam and destroy “nationalist resistance,” in line with the Royal United Providers Institute, a London suppose tank that has reviewed copies of Russia’s battle plans. (AP Picture)
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“These orders had been written at Chaiko’s degree. So he would have seen them and signed up for them,” mentioned Jack Watling, a senior analysis fellow at RUSI who shared the battle plans with The AP.
Whereas there’s nothing essentially unlawful about that order, it was typically carried out with flagrant disregard for the legal guidelines of warfare as Russian troops seized territories throughout Ukraine.
Witnesses and survivors in Bucha, in addition to Ozera, Babyntsi and Zdvyzhivka — all areas beneath Chaiko’s command — advised AP and FRONTLINE that Russian troopers tortured and killed individuals on the slightest suspicion they may be serving to the Ukrainian navy. Sweeps intensified after Russian positions had been hit with precision, interviews and video present, and troopers, in intercepted telephone calls obtained by The AP, advised their family members that they’d been ordered to take a no-mercy method to suspected informants.
Troopers advised their moms, wives and pals again in Russia that that they had killed individuals merely for being out on the road when “actual” civilians would have been within the basement, calls the Ukrainian authorities intercepted close to Kyiv present.
On Mar. 21, a soldier named Vadim known as his mom: “Now we have the order to take telephones from everybody and those that resist — briefly — to hell with the f——.”
“Now we have the order: It doesn’t matter whether or not they’re civilians or not. Kill everybody.”
On this picture from video launched by the Russian Protection Ministry Press Service on Thursday, March 24, 2022, commander of the troops of the Russian Japanese Navy District Alexander Chaiko speaks to Russian servicemen throughout a particular navy operation at an undisclosed location in Ukraine. (Russian Protection Ministry Press Service through AP)
The slightest motion of a curtain in a window — a potential signal of a spotter or a gunman — justified slamming an house block with deadly artillery. Ukrainians who confessed to passing alongside Russian troop coordinates had been summarily executed, together with youngsters, troopers mentioned.
“Now we have the order to not take prisoners of warfare however to shoot all of them lifeless straight,” a soldier nicknamed Lyonya mentioned in a Mar. 14 telephone name.
“There was a boy, 18 years previous, taken prisoner. First, they shot by his leg with a machine gun, then he bought his ears lower off. He admitted to every part and was shot lifeless,” Lyonya advised his mother. “We don’t take prisoners. That means, we don’t go away anybody alive.”
The File Middle, a London-based investigative group funded by Russian opposition determine Mikhail Khodorkovsky, verified the identification of the troopers who made these calls by cross-referencing Russian telephone numbers, linked social media accounts, public reporting and data in leaked Russian databases.
‘That’s The place Folks Have been Killed’
Fierce Ukrainian resistance and poor planning pushed Russian troops off their deliberate line of assault. A few of them ended up in Bucha, the place Ukrainian prosecutors say the 76th Guards Airborne Assault Division participated in a deadly cleaning operation on Mar. 4 alongside Yablunska Road, the deadliest street in occupied Bucha and the location of an vital Russian command middle.
Others settled with 1000’s of different troops in Zdvyzhivka, a tiny village half an hour north of Bucha that grew to become a serious ahead working base for the assault on the capitol, in line with Ukrainian navy intelligence and audio intercepts obtained by AP.
Study the incidents: Battle Crimes Watch Ukraine
Russian troops dug into the woods round Zdvyzhivka, constructing digital cities that stretched for a number of kilometers beneath the tall pines and poplar timber. They left gaping trenches sized for tanks, semi-permanent bunkers strengthened with logs and sandbags, rough-hewn tables and benches. There was even a discipline sauna, images and intercepts present.
The Russians arrange their most delicate infrastructure alongside Tsentralna Road, the principle north-south artery on the town. They took over the village council constructing, a cultural middle, a faculty and arrange headquarters within the massive white kindergarten. On the primary intersection, close to the pond, Russians turned a Baptist church right into a discipline hospital, took over a forestry administration constructing and commandeered a big ostrich farm for his or her autos and provides. Within the fields behind the church, locals watched helicopters ferry in provides and evacuate the wounded.
Navy helicopters fly over the Osipovichi coaching floor throughout the Union Braveness-2022 Russia-Belarus navy drills close to Osipovichi, Belarus, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. (AP Picture/Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr., File)
Checkpoints confronted in each path. It was so tough to cross the checkpoint going south on Tsentralna that locals tried to bypass it, wending their means alongside a footpath that skirted the pond as a substitute. One lady advised AP she tried 3 times earlier than she was allowed to cross and get again to her own residence.
Tania, who was afraid to publish her final title, lives on this southern stretch of Tsentralna Road. She stayed in Zdvyzhivka together with her kids throughout the occupation, hemmed in by Russian checkpoints on each side.
It appeared like tanks had been parked in each yard, Tania mentioned. Troops took over dozens of deserted houses.
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There may be one home on Tania’s stretch of Tsentralna Road, between the checkpoints, that stands out. It’s the greatest, ritziest compound round. Past its excessive brick wall, a sublime round driveway results in a big pinkish home. A stone path winds by the again backyard, an oasis of fenced-in inexperienced with manicured hedges, thick timber, two gazebos, a basketball courtroom, banks of backyard planters. On the far again fence, a small door opens onto the woods past.
The troopers who got here and went from that compound had been older, skilled, spoke like educated males, Tania and different neighbors mentioned. That they had automobiles with drivers. They advised individuals what to do. Everybody figured they had been officers.
“That’s the place individuals had been killed,” Tania mentioned, squinting down the road and pointing to the compound.
Tanks take part within the Union Braveness-2022 Russia-Belarus navy drills on the Obuz-Lesnovsky coaching floor in Belarus, Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022. (AP Picture/Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr., File)
What They Discovered within the Backyard
Life beneath the occupation of Chaiko’s forces was tense and terrifying, native residents advised AP and FRONTLINE.
Andrii Shkoliar lives on Tsentralna Road along with his prolonged household, a number of homes down from the luxurious compound. On Mar. 18, Shkoliar and his spouse had been strolling close by to a relative’s home when a dark-colored UAZ Patriot sped previous, stopped abruptly and drove again to them.
A tall, blonde soldier with a beard who gave the impression to be of upper rank stepped out of the Russian-made SUV, demanding to know why they’d damaged curfew.
“I offer you one hour to go and are available again otherwise you’ll be like this one within the automobile,” the Russian advised him.
Shkoliar peered by the again window of the SUV at a person slumped towards the window, eyes certain with tape, his fingers behind his again.
On their means again, Shkoliar and his spouse noticed the identical UAZ Patriot parked in entrance of the officers’ compound.
Andrii Shkoliar, left, and his mother-in-law, Natalia Savenko, sit of their dwelling in Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine on Aug. 1, 2022. On March 18, Shkoliar and his spouse had been strolling close by to a relative’s home when a dark-colored UAZ Patriot sped previous, stopped abruptly and drove again to them. A soldier who gave the impression to be of upper rank stepped out of the Russian-made SUV, demanding to know why they’d damaged curfew. “He advised me: “I offer you one hour backwards and forwards, in any other case you’ll be like this one within the automobile,” Shkoliar recalled. (AP Picture/Erika Kinetz)
The following day, Mar. 19, Ukrainians launched a precision strike, knocking out a Russian storehouse on the ostrich farm on Tsentralna, in line with village head Raisa Kozyr. Russian troops sprang into motion, looking out door to door and checking paperwork.
The identical blonde officer and driver of the UAZ Patriot, together with a 3rd man, appeared at Shkoliar’s entrance door and pulled everybody out of the home to seek for weapons. They mentioned they’d kill everybody in the event that they discovered something.
“We had been saying goodbye to our lives,” Shkoliar recalled. “What else might we do?”
The sweeps consumed the entire village.
Folks stroll alongside an improvised path beneath a bridge that was destroyed by Ukrainian troops designed to sluggish any Russian navy advances, as they flee Irpin, Ukraine, Saturday, March 5, 2022. (AP Picture/Vadim Ghirda, File)
Vitalii Chernysh was picked up that afternoon as he rode his bike by a discipline. Chernysh mentioned troopers discovered a photograph of Russian navy autos somebody had despatched him on the messaging app Viber on Feb. 25 and hauled him off with three different individuals, certain and blindfolded, to a close-by barn. It was under zero, and not one of the prisoners was dressed for the chilly.
As evening deepened, they chatted with the Russian guarding them. “He mentioned extra captured individuals had been introduced over,” Chernysh recalled. “From Bucha, from Ozera, from Blystavytsia and some other place … Briefly, they gathered individuals.”
The following day, Chernysh was taken, blindfolded, to a discipline and accused of being a spotter.
“The place are the nationalists?” the troopers demanded. They poured gasoline on him and pretended to set him on fireplace. They ordered him to run by what they mentioned was a minefield. Nonetheless blindfolded, Chernysh struggled to his toes and tried to observe the troopers’ instructions: “Go proper. Go straight. Go sooner.” Then they beat his legs once more, with what felt like a wood plank.
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Chernysh started to want they’d simply kill him.
Lastly, a person Chernysh thought was of upper rank came visiting, examined his telephone and advised the troopers to take Chernysh dwelling.
Pictures taken shortly after his ordeal present massive, furious bruises on the again of his swollen legs. Days later, Russia’s Ministry of Protection launched a video of Chaiko pinning medals on troopers close to Zdvyzhivka.
“All items, all divisions are appearing the best way they had been taught,” he mentioned within the March 24 video. “They’re doing every part proper. I’m happy with them.”
Vitalii Chernysh stands for a portrait in Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine, on April 28, 2022. Chernysh says troopers discovered a photograph of Russian navy autos somebody had despatched him on a social media platform on Feb. 25 and hauled him off with three different individuals, certain and blindfolded, to a close-by barn. The following day, Chernysh was taken, blindfolded, to a discipline and accused of being a spotter. “The place are the nationalists?” the troopers demanded. They poured gasoline on him and pretended to set him on fireplace. They ordered him to run by what they mentioned was a minefield. (AP Picture/Erika Kinetz)
On this picture from surveillance video, Russian troops take over Yablunska Road in Bucha, Ukraine on March 3, 2022, the place they arrange a headquarters throughout their month-long occupation. Police recovered practically 40 our bodies alongside Yablunksa after Russian forces withdrew on the finish of March. (AP Picture)
When Russian forces retreated every week later, the our bodies started to floor.
Bucha, a nice city outdoors Kyiv, rapidly grew to become a worldwide image of Russia’s wartime atrocities and case primary for Ukrainian warfare crimes prosecutors. Retreating troopers left behind the our bodies of over 450 males, ladies and youngsters — virtually all bore indicators of violent dying.
However the slaughter wasn’t restricted to Bucha. It was repeated on the town after city, village after village. Together with in Zdvyzhivka.
“We didn’t know what was occurring round us,” mentioned Kozyr, the village head. “What was occurring within the woods. And we knew individuals had been lacking.”
On March 30, Yevhen Pohranychnyi went to the luxurious dwelling Russian officers had used. Now that they had been gone, he needed to verify on his neighbor’s cat and see how badly the home had been looted.
The home was trashed, images present. Drawers had been ripped from desks and dressers. Garments, books and papers had been strewn all around the flooring. What the Russians hadn’t stolen, they’d smashed.
A home burns following shelling of Irpin, Ukraine, 26 kilometers (16 miles) west of Kyiv, Friday, March 4, 2022. When Russian troops crossed from Belarus into Ukraine in late February, urgent towards Kyiv, they had been ordered to dam and destroy “nationalist resistance,” in line with the Royal United Providers Institute, a London suppose tank that has reviewed copies of Russia’s battle plans. (AP Picture/Oleksandr Ratushniak, File)
Pohranychnyi made his means out the again, to the far finish of the lengthy backyard. There, as evening was falling, he discovered one thing far worse: The our bodies of two males — one with a crushed cranium curled up like a toddler, his joints at unusual angles; the opposite with purple marks round his neck, who had bled out from his head and face onto a pink material.
The following morning, he introduced the village head, the village priest and others to the location. Three extra our bodies had appeared in a single day. The blood was contemporary. A few of them had their eyes and fingers certain. Two gave the impression to be wearing garments that weren’t their very own.
Three of these males — Mykola “Kolia” Moroz, Andrii Voznenko and Mykhailo Honchar — had been picked up from close by Ozera between Mar. 15 and Mar. 22 on suspicion of appearing as spotters for the Ukrainian navy, eyewitnesses advised AP and FRONTLINE. Moroz was captured the day after a precision strike on a Russian place hidden within the woods outdoors Ozera, a drone video analyzed by the Middle for Data Resilience, a London-based nonprofit that makes a speciality of digital investigations, exhibits.
AP and FRONTLINE visited that backyard in July and located bullet casings and a zipper tie on the bottom and bullet holes within the fence the place the boys had been discovered — indications that that they had been killed on the premises of the home frequented by Russian officers in probably the most tightly guarded sections of Zdvyzhivka in late March.
All advised, 17 individuals have been discovered lifeless in Zdvyzhivka — a village of 1,000 earlier than the warfare.
The our bodies of individuals killed throughout Russian shelling lie coated on the street within the city of Irpin, Ukraine, Sunday, March 6, 2022. When Russian troops crossed from Belarus into Ukraine in late February, urgent towards Kyiv, they had been ordered to dam and destroy “nationalist resistance,” in line with the Royal United Providers Institute, a London suppose tank that has reviewed copies of Russia’s battle plans. (AP Picture/Diego Herrera Carcedo, File)
Chaiko in Cost
Battle crimes prosecutors in Ukraine try to collect proof towards Chaiko, who earned a worldwide repute for brutality as chief of Russia’s forces in Syria. The U.Ok. sanctioned him for his actions there, and Human Rights Watch says Chaiko might bear command duty for widespread assaults on hospitals and faculties and using indiscriminate weapons in populated areas throughout a infamous marketing campaign in Idlib province in 2019 and 2020. At the very least 1,600 civilians had been killed; some 1.4 million had been displaced, in line with the group.
In Ukraine, prosecutors say they don’t have proof Chaiko ordered particular crimes, however it’s clear that atrocities had been dedicated beneath his watch.
In June, the U.S. State Division sanctioned Russia’s 76th Guards Airborne Assault Division and its 234th Guards Airborne Assault Regiment, in addition to the sixty fourth Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade for atrocities in Bucha.
Learn extra: A Devastating Stroll By the Horrors of Bucha, Ukraine
These items had been all beneath the last word command of Chaiko, Ukrainian authorities advised AP.
However Chaiko’s duty prolonged past Bucha.
To attempt to perceive who might need been concerned within the deaths of the boys from Ozera, the AP obtained information about their cellphone exercise from the Ukrainian authorities. On Mar. 21, the day Russian troopers captured Voznenko, his cellphone pinged the identical cell tower as 40 Russian telephone numbers — a sign of who was close by when he was kidnapped.
The File Middle discovered specific references to particular Russian navy items in current work historical past databases for 14 of these telephone numbers. 9 got here from items Ukrainian authorities advised the AP had been beneath Chaiko’s command. The formal wartime command constructions for the remainder are unclear, however 4 are from unit 62295, an airborne regiment based mostly in Ivanovo, northeast of Moscow. That unit was in Ozera, alongside Chaiko’s entrance within the warfare, in line with Russian telephone numbers left behind on scraps of paper in Ozera that the File Middle traced to particular troopers.
Troopers stroll on a path as smoke billows from the city of Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, March 12, 2022. The northwest suburbs of the capital, similar to Irpin and Bucha had endured Russian shellfire and bombardment, prompting residents to go away their houses. (AP Picture/Felipe Dana, File)
Days earlier than the our bodies of Voznenko and the others had been discovered mutilated within the backyard in Zdvyzhivka, two eyewitnesses noticed Chaiko once more, lower than a mile down the street at his headquarters within the village.
Each males independently recognized him as Chaiko when AP and FRONTLINE confirmed them {a photograph} of the colonel common in July.
“It’s him,” mentioned Mykola Skrynnyk, 58, who served within the Soviet military within the Nineteen Eighties, and says he exchanged a number of phrases with the final. “Now I perceive why there was a lot safety.”
“Whenever you take a look at every part that was occurring in Zdvyzhivka, it turns into evident that this isn’t only a singular case, that is their coverage for the territory they seize,” mentioned Taras Semkiv, a warfare crimes prosecutor within the workplace of Ukraine’s prosecutor common.
Learn extra: Ukraine Pushes to Strive Alleged Battle Crimes as Combating Rages
As high commander, Chaiko clearly “would have to pay attention to what was occurring close to his headquarters situated in the identical village,” he mentioned. “It’s solely logical.”
However, he added, “This must be confirmed. And I believe we are going to do it.”
There’s no idea of command duty in Ukrainian legislation, but when prosecutors can reveal that Chaiko performed a key function in implementing unlawful insurance policies of the Russian Federation, or ought to have recognized what his troops had been doing and was ready to cease, or punish, their habits, he may very well be charged for warfare crimes, crimes towards humanity or genocide in a world courtroom.
The hand of a physique buried together with others is seen in a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Sunday, April 3, 2022. Witnesses and survivors in Bucha, in addition to Ozera, Babyntsi and Zdvyzhivka — all areas beneath Russian Col. Gen. Alexander Chaiko’s command — advised AP and FRONTLINE that Russian troopers tortured and killed individuals on the slightest suspicion they may be serving to the Ukrainian navy. (AP Picture/Rodrigo Abd, File)
Toby Cadman, a world human rights lawyer in London who’s working to carry Russia legally accountable for atrocities in Syria, mentioned the proof AP and FRONTLINE collected was sufficient to benefit an investigation of Chaiko on the Worldwide Felony Courtroom.
“Vital occasions like this could then fall by the cracks, they don’t get correctly investigated,” he mentioned. “A case file may very well be taken to the ICC, as a result of half the job is finished.”
“It’s a important case. It’s a strategically vital space. It’s a strategically vital particular person,” he mentioned. “The whole lot about it makes it a big matter to have a look at,” he mentioned.
The ICC declined to remark, citing confidentiality.
By no means Once more?
Whereas they search extra particular proof, Ukrainian prosecutors have indicted Chaiko for the crime of aggression, a broad cost that seeks to carry him accountable for serving to to plan and execute an unlawful warfare in Ukraine.
They are saying he was in Zdvyzhivka from Mar. 20 till Mar. 31, directing the assault on Kyiv — that’s, on the identical time the three males from Ozera had been killed and Chernysh was tortured.
Chaiko’s trial is anticipated to start quickly in Ukraine. However the dock will virtually actually be empty.
The Worldwide Felony Courtroom has a greater likelihood than Ukraine of extraditing, or capturing, Chaiko at some point. It’s at present the one worldwide discussion board that may maintain leaders criminally accountable for wartime atrocities. However it’s not a easy process.
The ICC doesn’t have jurisdiction over Russians for the broad crime of aggression as a result of Russia — just like the U.S. — by no means agreed to provide it authority to take action. As an alternative, prosecutors should hyperlink commanders with particular crimes.
That makes it onerous to construct instances towards leaders like Chaiko — and Vladimir Putin.
Our bodies lie scattered in a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Sunday, April 3, 2022. Ukrainian troops discovered brutalized our bodies and widespread destruction within the suburbs of Kyiv. (AP Picture/Rodrigo Abd, File)
A rising variety of individuals are calling for the creation of a particular tribunal for the crime of aggression in Ukraine — just like these arrange for conflicts in Rwanda and the previous Yugoslavia — to handle this hole in worldwide legislation. They are saying it will be one of the best ways to make Putin pay.
“The crime of aggression is known as the mom of all crimes,” Ukraine’s international minister, Dmytro Kuleba, advised the AP and FRONTLINE. “You don’t have warfare crimes in case you don’t have the crime of aggression. So one of the best ways to prosecute personally President Putin is to have a particular advert hoc tribunal for the crime of aggression.”
It’s not clear whether or not Kuleba and his allies will succeed. They face political opposition from highly effective nations who don’t need to see their very own leaders within the dock and from the chief prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Khan, who mentioned his courtroom can deal with prosecutions by itself.
“Now we have clear jurisdiction,” he mentioned in an interview in July. “Victims don’t have a lot tolerance for my part for vainness tasks or distractions.”
The Kremlin didn’t reply to AP’s requests for remark.
Journalists look at the location of a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Tuesday, April 5, 2022, after Russian forces left. (AP Picture/Rodrigo Abd, File)
A resident seems to be for belongings within the ruins of an house constructing destroyed throughout preventing between Ukrainian and Russian forces in Borodyanka, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 5, 2022. (AP Picture/Vadim Ghirda, File)
However there isn’t a signal Moscow has sanctioned Chaiko for the very public atrocities dedicated on his watch. As an alternative, Putin praised Chaiko for his actions in Syria, awarding him the title “Hero of Russia” in 2020 and selling him to colonel common in June 2021.
Cadman, the worldwide human rights lawyer in London, watched with dismay as Russian atrocities in Syria — beneath the management of a number of the identical males, together with Chaiko — went unanswered.
“If we don’t act decisively now,” he mentioned, “it is not going to finish in Ukraine.”
A Ukrainian serviceman walks amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, Ukraine, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Wednesday, April 6, 2022. (AP Picture/Felipe Dana, File)
FRONTLINE producers Tom Jennings and Annie Wong, co-producer Taras Lazer and AP reporters Richard Lardner, Janine Graham and Solomiia Hera contributed to this report.
