It was 6:40 a.m. on February 24, the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the bombings did not stop there for almost a month. Nekazakov said he spent 20 days sitting on the ground in his basement at night. In the cold light of day, he and other residents of his neighborhood will go out to witness the damage done to their homes and come up with plans to find safer places to shelter.
“The shells have been coming for a long time – the missiles have been coming,” he said.
Russian missiles and rockets destroying buildings, lives and homes were fired from a vast Russian base hidden in the woods about 4 kilometers (about 2.5 miles) away.
Now only the remnants of this sprawling military camp lie among the trees. CNN was shown around the camp by Ukrainian special forces, which are gathering evidence of Russia’s plans for the capital among the rubble.
Earlier in the day of the invasion, as Russian troops headed for Kyiv, Ukrainian special forces estimated that 6,000 Marines had set up camp in the pine forest for a month due to rain, snow and temperatures that dropped to -12 degrees Celsius. Celsius (about 10 degrees Fahrenheit). The site included a main command post and headquarters. It was from here and the nearby field that the Russian army launched attacks against Kyiv, Hostomel and the nearby city of Bucha.
“Here they decided to deploy further action, the directions of the offensive, the tactics of action and so on,” an officer from the Ukrainian Special Forces told CNN, indicating the location of each part of the operation.
Huge gutters can be seen where troops fired city rockets from a field forty kilometers (about 25 miles) from the capital. In the woods, disks of Grad missiles and ammunition shells were strewn on the floor of the launch sites.
Russian forces built dugouts, command posts, ammunition depots and communication lines using trees and timber from the forest.
They slept in underground fortifications covered with timber and green wooden boxes that once contained BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers and tubular artillery. Black wires connected each of the shelters in the forest for communication.
The forest was also littered with food containers decorated with Russian military brands: a member of the special forces uncovered a soaked notebook containing instructions from a previous mission in Azerbaijan. A guide to Russian camouflage and cover-up was found at the scene, along with clothing and footwear.
Pointing to the size of the camp, an officer told CNN, “The Runacs are fighting not in quality but in quantity.”
“They don’t consider soldiers to be people, for them they are cannon fodder and consumables. The tactics of the Russian army are perhaps similar to the Middle Ages, when they took not by skill but by quantity,” he added.
Remains of military equipment, clothing and fortifications are not the only things the Russians have left behind.
Russian soldiers stormed nearby neighborhoods, seized homes and terrorized residents they came in contact with, according to locals and a priest.
The torture, humiliation and shallow graves of people killed by those at the base are now haunting these villages.
“I was beaten … but I’m alive”
Vitaly Chernish of the village of Zdvigovka on the outskirts of Kyiv said he was cycling through his village when he was captured by Russian forces “hunting Nazis”. He said he was held for nearly 24 hours.
Chernysh remembers praying in what he thought would be his last minutes alive. “[I was] blindfolded, hands tied and around me. They fired, “he told CNN.
Chernish said he was locked up in a shed after being forced to cross a minefield. He said Russian soldiers were considering pouring petrol on him and had threatened to take him to the crematorium. Soldiers fired around his body while he was tied up, constantly asking him what his last wish would be, he said. He said he was left in the freezer for hours.
“I would be beaten on the arms and legs, below the waist. The bruises remain,” he said. I thought my leg was broken, I was lame. But I am alive and well, thank God. “
In his garden, missile artillery still lies in his field – another daily reminder of his painful ordeal and the coming month under Russian occupation and attack. Chernysh survived, but other residents were killed after being tortured by soldiers who came out of their forest fortress.
Vasily Benz, a local priest in Zdvigovka, told CNN that Russian troops, tanks and armored vehicles had gathered in the village and remained there for a month. People were afraid to leave their basements, he said. When Benka did, he said he found five men whose bodies had been mutilated in the garden – and two more in the woods.
“The Russians asked me – or forced – to bury two (additional) women in the cemetery,” Benka told CNN.
Nekazakov, who fled when the Russians attacked his village, has now returned to his home in Hostomel. He remembers all the bodies he passed when he left, he said, and regretted that there was nothing he could do about it.
Now, he said, he hates Russian President Vladimir Putin and the soldiers who ravaged his hometown.
“I just feel hatred. We wouldn’t have thought after hundreds of years that this could happen,” he said, looking at the graves of those killed. “We can’t forgive him for the rest of our lives.”
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