“Il mio villaggio ucraino non esiste più”

[Paul R. Gregory](https://www.hoover.org/profiles/paul-r-gregory) relays frontline reports on the extent of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

He writes, “We know about the Bucha atrocities because Ukrainian troops retook the city a month later. Now, as Ukrainian settlements fall to Russia’s eastern offensive, we have little information about the myriad “Buchas” that are being absorbed into the unrecognized “people’s republics” of Ukraine’s Donbas region by Russia. Are they receiving the same treatment as their compatriots in Bucha?

We do have horrific accounts of massacres by Russian forces in occupied villages and towns in eastern Ukraine. One of these is the hometown of my daughter-in-law, Ryta. She spends much of her day in contact with friends and relatives back home as they struggle to survive. She offers a grim litany of accounts from friends and neighbors that confirm that “Bucha” is the rule rather than the exception. Atrocities against women, children, and the elderly are a Russian core strategy, not merely the result of untrained recruits running amok. These atrocities are carefully planned and executed by hardened combat soldiers, whose task is to annihilate the adult male population of Ukraine.

Accordingly, I asked Ryta to describe the Russian takeover of her home village in her own words as she recounts the horrific accounts told by survivors.

She writes the following:

>*In my imagination, I can picture my village of Mykhailivka (some 45 kilometers from Donetsk City and 20 km from Pokrovsk). I can see in my mind’s eye our home, much of it built by hand by my father, a coal miner, near blind from mining accidents incurred during the Soviet era. I can still picture the lush vegetable garden tended by my mother and father. I can hear the bubbling stream from which my father brought home a bounty of fresh fish. In my dreams, I picture our village school and conjure up the images of my “same-year classmates” (odnoklasnyky) with whom I spent ten years of my life.* 

>*Such memories must remain just memories. My Mykhailivka is no more. It has been wiped from the map, reduced to a pile of rubble and makeshift graves.*

You can read Ryta’s full, detailed account [here](https://www.hoover.org/research/my-ukrainian-village-no-more).