(CNN)
In Ukrainian villages east of the capital, Kyiv, where Russian forces have withdrawn, residents are slowly emerging from hiding, and the new reality they face is nothing but devastating.
CNN’s Clarissa Ward toured a couple of villages that had been occupied by Russians for more than a month. She said they had found “endless stories of horror, executions, arbitrary detentions and more.”
A local school was taken over by Vladimir Putin’s invading army, used as a base and left in ruins after being looted and searched by troops.
The bloodstains are stains on the main entrance, where the school principal is left wondering how such an atrocity happened.
“We are for education. Education is the future. Our students, “Ward’s wife said. “It is unfortunate that our occupiers did not understand this. Why steal everything? This is a school. “
A board in a classroom that Ward visited, which had previously been occupied by Russians, said, “Forgive us, we did not want this war.”
Nearby in a local cemetery are the bodies of six Ukrainians who authorities say were executed on the first day of Russian arrival.
“We dug very fast so we wouldn’t be shot,” a woman told CNN. “But there was shooting and heavy shelling.”
The two brothers are among the dead – Igor and Oleg. Their mother survived, but is now grieving.
“They were very good boys,” she said. “How I want to see them again.”
A Ukrainian mother told Ward that her daughter was abducted on March 25. More than two weeks later, she does not know where she is or whether she survived the Russian invasion.
“They said they found information on her phone about their strength,” Ward’s mother said. “I was told he was in a warm house. That he works with them and will be home soon.
But as Ward revealed, “Victoria never went home.”
Amid the risk of certain death, Ukrainians clung to each other and their sense of pride as a woman found solace in blue and yellow stripes, Ward said.
“We kept it, we kept it,” Ward’s wife said, pointing to the Ukrainian flag given to her husband for his military service. – We hid it.
Now the flag can come out of hiding as Russian forces have withdrawn. The village has been destroyed, but is currently vacant again.
Watch Ward’s on the ground reports:
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