They shot until the screams of the children and women stopped! Testimonies of people who survived the shelling of the convoy near Kupyansk
On September 25, a convoy of civilian vehicles was shot near Kupyansk. On October 1, the SBU of the Kharkiv region reported that 24 civilians had been killed, including 13 children and one pregnant woman. Currently, It is known that seven people managed to escape. Three of them told ICTV Facts what had happened that terrible day.
– On the 25th, we decided to go through Russia to Dnipro to visit our brother. It happened the way that our convoy was fired upon on the way out of Kurylivka. Everything was unexpected, to be honest, we didn’t even understand… the explosion, shelling. People started leaping out of the car, squealing, screaming, however, they were destroying the column, just to destroy it, – says Lyudmila Potapova, a resident of Kupyansk-Vuzlovoi.
Lyudmila tried to evacuate with her elderly mother and father. 69-year-old Boris Volodymyrovych was killed.
– Then there was no road as such that time. We were told that they were shooting and there was no way to drive. We were told that it is possible to leave through Svatove, Starobilsk to Dnipro in two days. So we drove. There were five cars and one Gazelle. There were elderly people, children, one pregnant woman – civilians who wanted to leave the borders of Kupyansk to stay alive.
There was a shot, the first car exploded, and then the shelling began. The whistling of bullets is sharp, to be honest, at first I thought it was rubble, and when I realized that there was an explosion, and screams, people behind were shouting, then we leaped out of the car, just without raising our heads, lying down! “Children!” was written on the Gazelle. Those who shot, I think, saw exactly that a column of civilians was driving, because through the windows they could see that women and elderly people were sitting!
The driver shouted: “Jump out!” We fell to the ground, lying down! Driver: “Don’t raise your head!” Bullets whistled overhead!
Mom started shouting: “Luda, Luda, where are you?” I said: “I’m here!” And the driver said: “Don’t shout, because they hear that we are shouting at each other and continue to fire!” And dad was hit in the head… Dad was in the front seat. I tried to give him a hand to pull him out of the car, but I didn’t have time. When I pulled my hand, the automatic queue went through the car, and dad was hit in the head. When we climbed over the rails, crabs were crawling through the landing in the ditch, I said to my mother: “It’s like a baby is crying over there in the Gazelle, I could hear that the child was crying!” – said the woman.
They drove through the temporarily occupied Svatov, Luhansk region, because a volunteer named Dmytro recommended this route as the only safe one, the woman explains. He took 6,000 UAH from each. He did not go with the convoy that day. Who exactly fired at the column, the woman did not see, but claims that the territory was controlled by Russian troops in those days:
– Ukraine entered the border of Kupyansk-Vuzlovoi on the 27th, we left on the 25th. We first left on the 24th, we were turned back in front of Kurylivka, and then a man, Dmytro, I think his name was. He was collecting money from people and said: “Everything will be fine, come tomorrow morning, you will leave.” He said that the road was clean, you could drive without any problems.
Lyudmila’s mother, Tamara Galishnikova, is wearing a black shawl. She immediately cries when she remembers her husband’s death.
– He then shouted to me: “Get out of the car, or it will explode!” I answer: “I won’t go without you!” He said: “I’m wounded!” I said: “Where to?” – “To the leg!” I said: “Come on, open the door, I’ll get you out!” And his door was jammed. He could not get out. And then the daughter said that he was also wounded in the head, – the pensioner recalls that terrible day.
When they crawled to the landing, they counted: eight people survived, two were wounded. They walked to Kivsharivka, one of the wounded died on the way.
– We started to pick him up, he couldn’t walk anymore, he fell down, one of his hands, the fingers were bruised, the other hand was completely inactive, we bandaged him, squeezed him so that he wouldn’t bleed, but… sorry! Galishnikova told how those who survived tried to save themselves.
People were literally hunted, adds daughter Lyudmila. I am sure that the goal of the killers was to kill everyone.
– Kill all so that there is no one alive at all! When we had walked for some time, half the field for sure, we heard the vehicles coming from behind, and we climbed into the landing, sat bent over, lay on the ground so that it would pass, and only then got out. We understood that they were looking for us! – remembers Lyudmila Potapova.
Mykola Bondarenko was driving the car in which Lyudmila was traveling with her mother and father. He was also wounded, and his son was killed.
– I went to take my friend out with his family, because my son was going to leave: “I promised a man, I will take him and that’s it!” I didn’t let him go, but he left. And I took my friend and followed my son. When the column reached the embankment, a flurry of fire began on it. They shot through the cars from grenade launchers so that they would not run into the landing, and from this side they finished off with machine guns. In front, my son’s car burned before my eyes with a 6-year-old child, the child’s grandmother and father. They shot until they heard screams! – says Mykola.
Explains why we went specifically in the direction of temporarily occupied Svatovoy:
– Our village is located in such a way that there is a river on one side and there is no bridge. From here – a swamp, and only one exit, so to speak, where you could jump out. (journalist) – “Was Dmytro in the convoy with you?” – No, the next day or so I was told that he was found dead in the center of the village with a shot in the head. I think that the relatives of those people whom he sent to their death found him… He was a resident of Kupyansk-Vuzlovoi.
I think he might be connected to that side. Because he was in charge of it, and I think there must have been someone behind it. Understand that if you are placed in a closed room and you do not know anything, you will be susceptible to all rumors, any information. And he persuaded people, based on hearsay, that they should run there, I think they killed him for a reason.
Late in the evening of October 1, the bodies were delivered to the Kharkiv Regional Bureau of Forensic Medical Examinations, and the autopsy of the bodies began on October 2. The investigation continues under the article of violation of the laws and customs of war, combined with intentional murder. The collected evidence will be handed over to the International Criminal Court.
