Near her garden shed is the body of a man lying face down with a bag on his head and his hands tied behind his back. His pants are down. There are large bruises on his left leg and a large wound on his head.
There is a cartridge case next to his body.
“He was executed with a shot to the head,” said a Ukrainian national police officer. There are no documents about the man, but local authorities say all indications are that he is another civilian victim of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war.
The body is one of many recently discovered in cities east of Kyiv that were occupied by Russian forces.
Borodyanka was home to 13,000 people before the war, but most fled after the Russian invasion. What was left of the city after intense shelling and devastating air strikes was then occupied by Russian forces on February 28.
Yuri Pomin was still in the city when the Russian attack began.
“The worst was when their planes came. They were flying over our house and dropping bombs,” Pomin told CNN.
Today, the 33-year-old is cleaning his apartment on the fourth floor. The high-rise building next to it was razed to the ground by a Russian strike, and he moved what was left of his property to another house outside the city.
“I can’t stay here,” he said. – Is not safe.
The month-long Russian occupation left a devastating mark on the city.
Not only was it almost completely destroyed by long-range attacks – the buildings were turned into piles of rubble – but the occupying Russian forces then used some of the houses as their own barracks.
Kostichenko and her husband, Oleksandr, fled when the shelling began for the first time, only to return after the city returned to Ukrainian control on April 1st.
While their home seemed untouched by the heavy shelling that destroyed Borodyanka, he was searched inside. Clothes and discarded bottles were strewn on the floor. They found their pet dead in their cage.
“Alcohol is everywhere; empty bottles in the hallway, under things, “said the 44-year-old. “They (the Russians) smoked a lot, put out cigarettes on the table. They used the bed linen as their own.”
Most of the furniture is either damaged or destroyed, as is their TV.
“They did everything they wanted,” Kostichenko said. “Our jewels have been taken away. They are nothing but robbers.”
The surrounding shops were also looted, their windows were broken and the contents were stolen or scattered on the floors.
The letter “V”, abbreviated from Vostok (meaning “east” in Russian) – and a symbol used by Russia’s Eastern Military District along with the letter “Z”, the emblem of Moscow’s so-called “special military operation” – was drawn on buildings, vehicles and checkpoints.
The local unemployment service and the town hall have been fortified and turned into the headquarters of the Russian troops stationed in the city. Both were also covered by V.
Borodyanka was a starting point for Russian troops as they advanced on Kyiv through suburbs such as Bucha and Irpin. They face stubborn resistance from Ukrainian forces and are forced to retreat.
Remains of destroyed Russian equipment in dozens of already buried cities and towns around the capital, and fox holes and artillery positions were left almost untouched.
Authorities imposed a curfew in the entire Kyiv region until April 7, urging residents to remain indoors while conducting demining operations.
Moscow has denied targeting civilians, but volunteers are working with police to retrieve the bodies of killed civilians left to rot in the open.
“We are gathering people who were shot by the Russians. Civilians who have been tortured. We have been working for two days,” said Gennady Avramenko, 45.
CNN is watching Avramenko and his colleague pull the body of a 44-year-old Ukrainian out of a car. He was shot in the heart while driving, his car crashing into a ditch by the road.
“It is psychologically difficult,” Avramenko said. “The worst thing is that we do not find soldiers, only innocent people.
“They were shot for no reason,” he added.
Volunteers take two more bodies within an hour. One is the charred corpse of a man hit by an artillery shell, and the other is an elderly man who was shot while riding his bicycle.
“We took seven people (Monday) and (by noon Tuesday) we are already six,” Avramenko said.
In and around Borodyanka, authorities are only now beginning to search what is left of most of the buildings, knowing they will continue to find dead bodies, as they do.
Despite the withdrawal of Putin’s army from their city, Borodyanka residents fear the destruction they will sow will last for months, if not years.
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