Death and defiance in a Bucha neighbourhood that was held by Russian troops

Russian soldiers arrived at the address just after midday on March 5

Set in a quiet, tree-lined neighbourhood of the Ukrainian town of Bucha, an apartment complex on Vodoprovidna street has neatly trimmed verges with pedestrian walkways. Number 34a Vodoprovidna is one of a clutch of modern apartment buildings that back on to a kindergarten.

Residents are largely middle class: Vasyl Nedashkivskiy, who fitted PVC windows, lived on the fifth floor with his wife, Tetyana, and their dog, Nika. Another resident is a child psychologist and a third, Oleksii Tarasevich, a nanotechnology engineer, Qazet.az reports. 
Russian soldiers arrived at the address just after midday on March 5, according to Tarasevich, who kept a diary and a video and photo record of what he saw from his apartment window. He shared the images and footage with Reuters, which verified they were taken during the relevant time period.

A month later, 47-year old Nedashkivskiy and another local were dead - their mutilated bodies discovered on a basement stairwell of a building in the complex - and many of the complex’s residents had fled. In a residents' parking lot, a Renault Captur SUV and an Audi saloon lay flipped over.

The accounts by at least a dozen of the complex's residents paint a picture of violence and intimidation by the soldiers while they were in the neighbourhood. Nedashkivskiy had been badly beaten while unarmed, according to his wife and Tarasevich.

Nedashkivskiy’s wife, Tetyana, told Reuters that Russian soldiers found an automatic rifle hidden in their apartment following his beating in mid March. She said a soldier told her the Russian troops then took her husband to an undisclosed location for questioning. Two weeks later, after Russian troops withdrew, neighbours found Nedashkivskiy’s dead body, Tetyana said.

A photograph of Nedashkivskiy’s body reviewed by Reuters showed his face and hands had been smashed with what appeared to be a blunt instrument.

The second man was found dead on April 1 at the same spot where Nedashkivskiy’s body was discovered, according to Tetyana. Marks on the second man's body, which was seen by Reuters two days later, indicated he had been beaten and shot through the mouth at very close range.