War in Ukraine / April 5

The Molfar team sends a daily newsletter about the war in Ukraine. The editorial staff of AIN.Capital publishes the full version of the digest. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.

Mobile crematoria are new reality of the war in Ukraine

According to the city council of Mariupol, which is now literally destroyed, russian troops have begun to use mobile crematoria. Their main task is to destroy the corpses of civilians. People will not be buried or handed over to Ukraine, but simply destroyed. The goal is to hide the crimes of russian troops, as well as the real scale of the atrocities of the russian army.

This decision was made by the leadership of the russian army after photos were published from the liberated cities of Kyiv region. In particular, photos from the city of Bucha, where more than 400 people were executed and tortured to dead. People were just lying on the road, in basements, in their homes. The photos flew around the world and showed the atrocities of the russian army, although russia tried to talk about fakes.

To prevent the emergence of new evidence, the russian army started to use mobile crematoria in Mariupol. For russia, this is not the first such practice in this war. Earlier it was reported that russians could burn the bodies of their dead militants, due to the large number of casualties in the war with Ukraine, to hide the real number of killed. Now they will hide the real number of civilian people killed in Mariupol.

According to the Ukrainian side, there are up to 160,000 civilians in Mariupol. Turkey is ready to organize a humanitarian mission by sea, but it is impossible to agree on it. One of the possible reasons is the real picture of what is happening in Mariupol. That is why the russian army first wants to remove evidence of its crimes and only then – to allow foreign humanitarian missions into the territory.

Airstrike, missile and MRL damage

Dnipro region:

• An oil storage depot was shelled , 6 tanks with fuel oil caught fire.
• Shelling of the factory area.

Luhansk region:

• A shell hit a tank of nitric acid. 5 people were injured, 7 people got out from under the rubble.
• In total, 81 attacks were recorded in the region per day. 15 infrastructure facilities and residential buildings were damaged. In Severodonetsk 1 person was wounded.

Donetsk region:

• The school was partially destroyed by a missile attack.

Kharkiv region:

• 18 houses were destroyed, 3 people were injured.

Vinnytsia region:

• Explosion near Kozyatyn. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the oil depot was destroyed.

Lviv region:

• The fighter launched 2 cruise missiles from Belarus. Both were shot down by air defense.

New laws

Russia:

• [Support for the economy] An agreement was signed with Belarus on the transition to rubles when paying for gas from April 2022.

Liberated territories

Bucha:

— The occupation of the city began on February 27, street fighting continued for several days. Russian troops fired at residential buildings from tanks and small arms, and hit the city with missiles and aviation.

— On March 31, Bucha was liberated. After the liberation of the city, dead residents were found on its streets, some of whom had their hands tied. People were also killed in their apartments, tanks ran over the cars full of people, people were shot in the streets when they went out for food and medicine. Some of the corpses were burned in the streets. They killed dogs by throwing grenades at them for fun. The international human rights organization Human Rights Watch recorded the fact of killing a civilian with a shot in the back of the head.

In one of the bomb shelters, people were held by force, after that they were killed. Also, dead civilians were found, who were tortured, then shot and left the bodies in the basement. Other cases of torture and sexual violence were also recorded, the heads of corpses were cut off.

After the liberation, a mass grave was found on the territory of the city, where ~280 bodies were buried. The dead were also buried in the courtyards. In total, on April 4, ~350 bodies were found and buried in Bucha, however, at that time, not all the bodies were collected, this number also did not take into account those buried in the gardens.

Most of the people were killed in the last days before the retreat of the Russian troops, when people were shot in the streets with small arms. At the same time, Russian troops had mined the city before retreating, including playgrounds, cars and doors of houses.

Borodyanka:

The settlement was occupied on February 27. Russian troops deliberately shelled multi-storey residential buildings, in the basements of which people were hiding, as a result, a collapse occurred. People were shot at roadblocks, incl. young children. Also from automatic weapons, people in the yards of private houses were shot. Killed people were not allowed to be taken from the streets, and it was also forbidden to dismantle the rubble of collapsed houses. People who tried to dismantle the rubble were shot.

In the settlement almost all buildings are destroyed. On April 4, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said that the worst situation regarding the victims is in Borodyanka. Presumably, hundreds of people are under the rubble of destroyed houses, the corpses were also burned in mobile crematoria, and part of the population was deported to Belarus.

Irpin:

The battles for Irpin had been going on since February 27, Russian troops occupied part of the city.

During the fighting, Russian troops launched airstrikes on residential buildings, used prohibited phosphorus ammunition, and residential complexes were shelled by mortars and tanks. The corpses of people lay on the streets, some were buried right in front of the houses. For the presence of Ukrainian symbols or vyshyvanka, civilians could be shot.

On March 5, while the evacuation train was passing, Russian troops blew up the railway tracks. Mortars also fired on civilians (1, 2) who tried to evacuate from the city, there were children among the dead. The bridge through which the evacuation took place was blown up, people crossed the river on two boards, and several people fell into the river.

The city was liberated on 1 April. After the liberation, bodies were found near the shopping center and in apartments.

Hostomel:

The settlement was attacked by Russian troops on the first day of the invasion, and at the same time, the Hostomel airport was captured. In the beginning of March, Yuriy Prylypko, chairman of the village council and two other volunteers were killed while distributing humanitarian aid. While trying to leave Gostomel, civilians incl. children were shot by Russian troops.

Russian soldiers broke into and burned houses, robbed apartments. Most of the houses in Hostomel are damaged or destroyed.

The world’s largest transport aircraft AN-225 “Mriya” was destroyed at the Hostomel airport.

Hostomel was liberated on April 2. On April 6, more than 400 residents of the city are considered missing.

Motyzhyn:

— Some of the houses in Motyzhyn were completely destroyed. Cars with residents trying to leave the village were shot by Russian troops. Also on the streets of the village, the bodies of the killed residents with their hands tied were found.

War in Ukraine. Weekly digest of the key events