A year after his liberation by the Ukrainian army, Boutcha has not forgotten the atrocities attributed to Russian forces, but the city is rebuilding, "the pain is lessening" and it is necessary to "continue to live" according to its inhabitants.
Unrecognizable, Vokzalna Street is an open-air construction site: several dozen construction workers are busy amidst diggers, backhoe loaders and dump trucks, to rebuild houses and redo the road.
It was in this long straight artery that a column of Russian armored vehicles was first destroyed by Ukrainian forces.
After the withdrawal on March 31, 2022 of troops from Moscow who had failed to take Kiev, charred carcasses of military vehicles littered the street of this suburb northwest of the Ukrainian capital and most of the houses bordering it were destroyed.
Anatoly Ievdokimenko is happy to show off his completely redone house. "The roof had holes, the doors and windows were broken. The shells were hitting everywhere," the 60-year-old told AFP.
“Volunteers started coming and restoring. Later there was a program to restore Boutcha, especially Vokzalna Street,” he explains.
During the occupation, which began on February 27, "the Russians lived in our cellar and prepared their food in the courtyard," he said, adding that he was able to leave the city through a humanitarian corridor on March 12.
A little further, Natalia Zelinska also benefits from the reconstruction program. She lives at the intersection of Vokzalna and Yablounska streets.
It was in this last street that on April 2, 2022, AFP journalists discovered, scattered over several hundred meters, the corpses of 20 men in civilian clothes, one of whom had his hands tied behind his back.
Summary executions of civilians and war crimes, according to kyiv, and images that shocked the world.
"With my mother and my daughter, we were there when the fighting started at the end of February, and at the start of the occupation," she told AFP, adding that she was also able to leave the city before mid-March.
"We didn't see anything, we were lucky not to see anything," she said.
She also considers herself "very happy to have been included in the reconstruction program" for her house. However, she confesses to needing to consult "a military psychologist to talk to him about the occupation" because "sometimes when I fall asleep, I remember this period and it's horrible".
In the enclosure of the Saint-André church, near the town hall of Boutcha, small construction machines are also at work. Municipal employees lay boards and a platform for official ceremonies scheduled for Friday in the city.
A mass grave had been dug next to the building to hastily bury the corpses of the victims of the occupation.
"A year ago, when the Russians were there, the inhabitants could only sit in the basements. It was dangerous for them, they were persecuted and robbed," Archpriest Andriï told AFP. , which manages the parish.
According to him, "it is very important that we do not forget the people who, unfortunately, are not with us today".
"But it is also important for us not to live in the past, but in the future. To live in the future, we must not only win, defeat the occupiers (...) but it is very important that the evil be condemned (...) The criminals must be condemned, evil must be punished", insists the religious.
At the city cemetery, Natalia Plessa, 47, came with her family to pray at the grave of her mother, who died recently and who lived through the entire Russian occupation.
At the bottom of the cemetery are nearly 80 unmarked graves of inhabitants who died during the occupation and whose identity could not be established.
Natalia and her husband remained under occupation for two weeks before leaving the city via a humanitarian corridor. "It was a terrible time. It was very scary to leave through the corridor," she recalls.
"Over time, the pain subsides and you forget about it, you continue to live. There are new ways of life, work, children, grandchildren, that you continue to live for," explains she.
"I'm sure that Boutcha will be an even more beautiful city than it was before the occupation," she hopes.
03/31/2023 16:02:57 - Boutcha (Ukraine) (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
