Russian soldiers shot dead five Ukrainian civilians trying to defend their village, inquest finds

PEREMOHA, Ukraine — For years, Serhiy Kulyk clung to a piece of land next to his modest home in Peremoha, a village about 60 kilometers northeast of Kyiv.

He hoped his 27-year-old son, Ruslan, would one day build a house there for his own family so they could stay close to each other.

That dream is gone forever: he died with Ruslan, one of five civilians who relatives and locals say were summarily executed by Russian soldiers at a post office in Peremoha shortly after taking over the village on February 28, according to a survey by Schemes.

The Ukrainian government is investigating the murders as a possible war crime. Based in part on reports from Schemes, authorities have identified two Russian officers who allegedly ordered soldiers to shoot civilians in Peremoha — Maksim Krasnoshchyokov and Aleksandr Vasilyev — as suspects.

Serhiy and Larysa Kulyk try to put the pieces of their lives back together after their loss, but every day the question arises: what’s the point?

“We got along a bit, but it’s difficult, very difficult to bury your children,” Ruslan’s mother, Larysa Kulyk, told Schemes, an investigative unit of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian service, as she was laying flowers on the cool ground. grave of his only son.

After Russian forces were driven out of Peremoha in March and April, the Kulyks returned to some semblance of the life they lived before Russia’s unprovoked February 24 invasion of Ukraine, including returning to work. But the allure of day-to-day activities, like tending to their garden and picking food for their children, has faded.

“Why do we need [the garden] without our son? Larysa Kulyk asked through tears. “What is the point?”

Shot on the stairs

The Kulyks, who have two adult daughters, are among thousands of Ukrainian families across the country who have lost loved ones in Russia’s war, which lasts more than five months after the invasion with no end in sight.

Their son and the four other men shot dead at the post office are among the many victims of Russian soldiers who dominated parts of northern Ukraine in the weeks following the invasion – and left a trail of death, destruction and allegations of rape, torture and other atrocities when they retreated, having failed to take Kyiv.

Peremoha, which means victory in Ukrainian and takes its name from the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, is one of many towns and villages in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions that Russian forces swept from the north during the first few days of the invasion.

On the evening of February 28, the day the Russian troops entered the village, Serhiy and Ruslan Kulyk went to the post office. They were part of a group of Peremoha men communicating via chat about how to defend their village of 1,100 people. Several of the men had agreed to meet that day at the post office, where one of them worked, to discuss what action to take.

Serhiy Kulyk told Schemes he believed the Russian column of armored vehicles would pass through Peremoha en route to Rusaniv, a village 7 kilometers to the west.

He expected Russian forces to face stiff resistance at Rusaniv – and felt that as they retreated, the willing defenders of Peremoha might try to take out armored vehicles with Molotov cocktails.

But the column stopped at Peremoha, he said, and Russian soldiers immediately began searching for individuals – particularly men – serving in local militias known as territorial defense units or helping the Ukrainian Armed Forces in any way.

Peremoha resident Olena Palivoda said she told her husband, Oleksandr, not to meet the group at the post office, warning him it was too dangerous.

It was one thing for the villagers to attack a single Russian military vehicle with Molotov cocktails, she told him, and quite another for them to watch an entire armored column.

“We will defend the village,” she replied in response.

Palivoda said her husband and the others may have been inspired by videos of Ukrainian acts of heroism during the first four days of the war.

But whatever their plans, they never had the opportunity to implement them. The Russian troops learned of their encounter, perhaps from a collaborator or a villager whom they interrogated, and proceeded to the post.

Ruslan’s last text

Serhiy and Ruslan Kulik had almost reached the building when they saw Russian armored vehicles heading in the same direction, Serhiy said. He said he ran through a fence and called his son, whom he thought was running behind him, only to realize later that he had decided to hide with others in the basement of the post office building.

“Mom, they almost found us,” Ruslan wrote that evening, at 9:50 p.m. That was the last time his parents heard from him.

Andriy, another member of the chat group, told Schemes that he was captured by Russian forces near the village council building and beaten. The soldiers interrogated him, took his phone and took him to the post office, where they interrogated him again. Two other men were also questioned there.

The soldiers ordered the other two men into the cellar, he said, and shot them from behind as they descended the first stairs.

“Before my eyes they were just shot and thrown into the basement,” said Andriy, who did not want his last name published.

He later learns that Russian soldiers have already killed three other men inside the post office, their bodies lying out of sight in the basement.

Four of Andriy’s childhood friends, including Ruslan Kulyk, were among the dead.

Oleksandr Palivoda, who moved to Peremoha three years ago, was the fifth victim.

The post office is now in ruins. Andriy said soldiers blew it up in an attempt to hide evidence of the murders.

Since the invasion, Russian forces have targeted Ukrainian civilians for interrogation, beatings and, in some cases, extrajudicial executions, sometimes accusing them of helping the army.

‘Happiest day’

Civilians who spontaneously take up arms – as Ruslan Kulyk and other victims may have planned to do – are entitled under international law to protection from violence when captured.

The Post Office massacre is among countless acts by Russian soldiers – some proven, some alleged – that are being investigated as possible war crimes.

While some of the suspects are in Ukrainian custodymost of them – including the two soldiers named by the authorities in the killings at the Peremoha post office, both majors who eyewitnesses said gave orders – have been killed, are still fighting or are returned to Russia.

Like Serhiy and Larysa Kulyk, other parents and residents struggle to come to terms with the murders five months later.

Olena Palivoda left Peremoha with her son after her husband was murdered, but has since returned.

The couple had worked hard for a decade to save money for the house they bought there. Among other jobs, they sold strawberries, raspberries and vegetables which they grew in the garden of their old house to earn money for the purchase.

“For us it was the best day of our lives,” Olena said of the day they bought the house. “It’s our castle.”

Written by Todd Prince based on reporting by Kira Tolstyakova