“Let Retribution Come Soon”
Three witness testimonies from the invasion of Ukraine.
MARCH 28, 2023
PHOTO: Hanna Tkachuk photographed in her dental office in Snihurivka, Ukraine after the city's liberation from Russian forces. (by Anna Tshyhyma)
The following witness interviews from Ukraine were collected, transcribed and translated by The Reckoning Project (TRP), an organization of journalists and lawyers dedicated to compiling evidence for future war crimes prosecutions. Two dozen Ukrainian reporters make up the on-the-ground staff of The Reckoning Project. For the past year, they have been traveling throughout Ukraine to collect testimonies of kidnappings, murders and attacks on civilians, in the hope of creating a repository of evidence for future claims against Russia.
The witness interviews “have to have enough details to reconstruct what really happened,” said Nataliya Gumenyuk, a Ukrainian journalist and founding member of TRP.
The interviews her team conducts are designed to extract meticulous detail: “It’s very important to be able to re-create details beyond those necessary to a typical news article,” Gumenyuk explained. “What happened from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.? What were they wearing? Uniforms? What language did they speak? Did they have guns?” The hope is that these details will one day allow prosecutors “to re-create the scene before, during and after the alleged crime” and perhaps identify the perpetrators.
Gumenyuk’s team does its best to collect testimonies shortly after the events in question take place. “There are people who want to tell the stories. But with time people don’t want to speak. The longer it takes from the crime, the less willing people are to [talk],” Gumenyuk explained. “I do think that journalists are the first responders. They are the first to arrive at the scene, they’re first to the talk to people. They arrive before human rights organizations or prosecutors.”
Below, The Dial presents three excerpts from witness testimonies collected by The Reckoning Project. Each one has been edited and translated.
The Bombing of Chernihiv
On March 3, 2022, eight bombs fell upon a small public square in the city of Chernihiv, killing civilians and severely damaging several nearby buildings. Most of the victims were queuing for food and medicine when the bombs fell. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Chernihiv region has reported that 57 people were killed in the attack. There were no legitimate military targets nearby.
WITNESS: IRYNA PRYHARA, 65 YEARS OLD
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY VIRA KURYKO
Pryhara was in her apartment at 38 Bohuna Street, which borders the public square, when the bombs fell. The last thing she remembers is seeing a plane flying outside her window. After that, she lost consciousness.
PRYHARA: When I opened my eyes I saw an image of the explosion. After that moment I don’t remember anything. I finally woke up at the hospital when I felt something cold on my face. … It felt good because it was cold. I had cuts everywhere, pieces of glass stuck to me like small scales. I had many cuts in different places: on the nose, and here, and here on the neck, skin with pieces of glass. I had a lot of injections. Everybody was contused of course.
REPORTER: When did you come back to your home for the first time after that?
PRYHARA: After two weeks. We stayed at the hospital, we were concussed, we couldn’t get up, couldn’t walk, couldn’t sit. On the second day, the nurses came, my hair was full of glass, it was falling down from me.
“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” they said.
So many pieces of glass were sprouting from me, from my clothes, my sweater. They undressed me lying down, glass spilled out from everywhere. I even had holes in my underwear. It was so scary to stay in the hospital. Every time we heard the planes, the staff left. … Every day a plane flew overhead and every day we said goodbye to our lives: That’s it. They will kill us now, they will kill us now. On March 16, a tank bombed our hospital. You probably know this story.
REPORTER: Yes, yes. …
PRYHARA: We jumped out of our beds. I grabbed a blanket and began to run through the corridor along the wall. … We thought we would be killed there. We spent that night in the basement. The nurses brought us blankets, jackets. It was freezing.
REPORTER: Before the war, what did you do for work?
PRYHARA: I worked as a director’s assistant. Then I got fired and later moved to Madrid. I studied, polished my Spanish. I got a job as a supply and maintenance manager at a local school. I had to help clean and prepare for the academic year. I did what I could.
REPORTER: What year was that?
PRYHARA: I left for Madrid in 2003. I was there until 2015. In January 2015, I returned home because events were heating up here. … I have two daughters. When I was in Madrid, I called them all the time, I cried. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t concentrate, because they kept saying that tanks were coming. I just couldn’t stand it. I invited them [to Madrid], they both came to visit, they liked being there. But nobody was ready to move. So I came back here.
REPORTER: Where did you live before you moved to your apartment on Bohuna Street?
PRYHARA: I had a one-bedroom apartment where I lived with my daughters. It was small. I worked at Cheksil [one of the largest textile companies in Ukraine]. My father sold his garage and car, and we pooled our money together and bought this apartment.
REPORTER: It’s obvious that you love it very much.
PRYHARA: You know, I would kill myself probably if I got a gun. But first, that pilot [who dropped the bombs on Chernihiv] should be killed. It would be fair. … I cry every day. The most important thing is that I stayed alive for my children and my grandchildren, it would have been such a sorrow if it had killed me. But how in heaven’s name I survived, I don’t know. And this concussion that I have, it hasn’t gone anywhere. I can speak and speak and speak, and then I don’t remember anything at all. But the old times I remember very well.
REPORTER: Why didn’t you leave after the first week of the invasion, when Chernihiv was attacked and besieged? What made you decide not to?
PRYHARA: I was very brave. I watched the news all the time, about the LNR and the DNR [the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic]. I thought: If they come to my clean apartment and throw me out of it, I will resist, I will become a partisan. My father went through World War II. The war began in 1941 here, my dad was only 16 years old. I thought I would be like him. I thought I could help by collecting information somehow, by just pretending to be some kind of old woman, I would fight. But after that plane, after that tank in the hospital, I’ve lost my spirit.
Attack on the Kramatorsk Railway Station
On April 8, 2022, the railway station in Kramatorsk was attacked. The witness and her husband were working as volunteers at the station, helping railway workers get people safely aboard evacuation trains. There were far more people queueing at the station than the evacuation trains could carry. Around 10:28 a.m., the witness was taking a break in her car, which was parked outside the station. As she was opening the car door, a powerful explosion occurred. It seemed to her that the missile fell right next to her car. She said she heard one big explosion, followed by a series of less powerful ones. When she got out of her car, she said she saw a “bloody mess,” the remains of human bodies and severed limbs strewn about. Sixty-one people died in the attack and 121 were wounded.
WITNESS: OLENA SEMENTSOVA, 48 YEARS OLD
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY NATALIYA GUMENYUK
REPORTER: Where are you from?
SEMENTSOVA: From Russia.
REPORTER: From Russia?
SEMENTSOVA: From the region of Ural. I was born there but grew up in Ukraine from the age of 2 or 3. I used to be a railway worker. From the age of 18 I worked on the railway, then I got married, gave birth, then had another child. Then we left for Kyiv. Then we came back to Kramatorsk. I was a mover.
REPORTER: What is a mover?
SEMENTSOVA: They accept and send trains: You allow the train to come in, you open the entrance for it. That’s who movers are.
Reporter: In Kramatorsk, did you go to the station to work as volunteers?
SEMENTSOVA: We are believers, we go to church. We were asked to help: They said they needed assistants to help people get to the railway station. There were a lot of people leaving, but there was practically no one helping them. Roma, my husband, couldn’t stay at home. He said, “I will go.” And I went with him as well.
REPORTER: Were there many people at the station?
SEMENTSOVA: Yes, there were about 4,000 people. The main gathering point was behind the station. That’s exactly where the bomb dropped. Most of the people were there.
REPORTER: How many explosions did you hear?
SEMENTSOVA: I don’t know. At first there was one, and then probably they began to fly out and burst, those cluster bombs. I was looking for my husband, it seemed to me that I was looking for him endlessly. It seemed to me that time stretched out. … Then when I looked at the time … it had not been more than five minutes. I found him in about five minutes.
REPORTER: Did you find him yourself?
SEMENTSOVA: I ran around a few times and couldn’t find him anywhere. I began to look among the wounded and he was not there. The dead were already being carried out. I thought that maybe I missed him, I was running, calling him. Someone picked up his phone, but I couldn’t hear anything. I said, “Roma, I can’t hear you, I can’t find you. Where are you?” Silence. And then the call was dropped. When I called again, someone picked up the phone. I shouted again, “Roma, I can’t find you.” A man said, “Did you call the phone here?” I said, “I am the wife. This is my husband’s phone.” He said, “We are collecting phones on the platform.” I said, “And where did you find it?” He said, “Near the toilet.” I said, “Is there anyone else?” And he said, “There is a man lying there.”
He was already covered with a tarp. Only his legs were visible, so unnaturally twisted. I saw his sneakers, his jeans. I thought: No way, I have to see him. This man grabbed me, pulled me and said, “Don’t look, don’t look.” I broke free and ran to pick him up. I saw that it was him, I saw his stomach opened. You know, the skin was taken off. I could see his insides. I remember the thought flashing: Why can’t I see his head?
That man grabbed me and began to pull me away. I was screaming. I don’t even remember it, people told me about it later.
REPORTER: When you returned home, where were your sons?
SEMENTSOVA: My neighbor immediately called me, she said, “Lena, what is going on there?” I said, “Roma is dead.” She began to cry. Then she said, “I will take the children.” She took them to her place, she took them for a walk and fed them. I called them when they were sitting down at the table. “Yes, boys,” I said, “Dad is dead. We will live on our own. We’ll manage.” The youngest … no one has seen him cry. I even asked him recently, “Do you miss him?” He said, “Yes.” “Do you cry?” I asked. He said, “Yes.” I asked,“When?” And he said, “Every night.” The child misses his dad. He is 12 years old. His dad was everything to him.
The only thing I had and probably still have is a feeling of grief. That’s it. It’s a broken life. But there is no resentment. My children, yes. They have bitterness, they have it all.
REPORTER: What do you hope for, for the city of Kramatorsk?
SEMENTSOVA: That it will survive. Today they destroyed our hotel, bombed it. They completely destroyed the school where our children studied. There is practically nothing left.
I have a sister in Russia, she moved there in 2014. She told my mother to ask me if I would move to Russia, because she did not dare say such a thing to me [herself]. My mother told me of my Russian family, “They are calling you. Come, they will help you.” I said, I’m sorry, but I think it’s absolute insanity to go to those people who broke your whole life. They ruined my whole life. Everything. It’s idiocy.
REPORTER: You said “those people.” Who do you think is responsible?
SEMENTSOVA: You know, since April 8, I have never had any resentment, or anger, or bitterness, either at the Russians or at anyone at all. The only thing I had and probably still have is a feeling of grief. That’s it. It’s a broken life. But there is no resentment. My children, yes. They have bitterness, they have it all.
REPORTER: I understand that you are a believer, and you think that some kind of retribution or some kind of responsibility should come. If there is a judicial process, who should be held responsible? There are people who — well, how to say it? It’s not like a meteorite fell on Kramatorsk — someone dropped the bombs.
SEMENTSOVA: Look. I don’t need someone to be held accountable. I don’t need anyone to bear responsibility. I don’t need anyone to be punished. I don’t want anyone to suffer that way. Some people say, “I want them to suffer the way we suffer.” I don’t think that way, it’s wrong. I just don’t want it to happen again. Criminals should be caught and imprisoned, I think, not in order to take revenge, but in order to prevent something from happening again. Nothing will change in my life. If something happens to the person who killed my husband, it won’t bring him back, it won’t give me back my life.
The Occupation of Snihurivka City Hospital
On March 19, 2022, Snihurivka City Hospital, in the southern Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv, was invaded by Russian troops. Before the war, the hospital served a community of 22,000 people. But after the full-scale invasion began, the town, which is situated between occupied Kherson and Mykolaiv, quickly became a front line. The approximately 200 doctors and nurses who worked at the hospital faced a choice: They could try to flee to safety, or they could stay and help the townspeople try to survive.
Around 80 medics, mainly female nurses, remained at the hospital. They coexisted with the occupiers, who visited the hospital almost every day and sometimes asked for treatment. Snihurivka was liberated by the Ukrainian armed forces on Nov. 10, 2022. Over the course of almost nine months of occupation, local medics reported treating more than 5,000 patients.
WITNESS: HANNA TKACHUK, 61 YEARS OLD, DENTIST AT THE SNIHURIVKA CITY HOSPITAL
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY NATALIYA GUMENYUK
REPORTER: I don’t even know where to start. How did you work? What has your routine been like for the past nine months?
TKACHUK: I believed that doctors should be on the front line, as in the Great Patriotic War — well, as in all wars. My neighbors are all elderly. … We stuck together as a group. I brought them water from the hospital.
We stayed for the people when the occupation began. Then the Russian soldiers came to our reception room for the first time. I thought: How should I approach all this? I took gloves, took a mirror, took a flashlight, tray, paper and went to the reception room. We were alone in the polyclinic, which is a four-story building. I didn’t want them to see anything. During those days, I covered up everything I could, because I already knew they had entered the school and taken the computers there. … They have very sticky hands. They immediately said they were “liberators,” only we did not know from what. When I saw them, I told them to go to the hospital in Kherson. And one of them who said he was from [the southern Russian city of] Maikop responded that the hospital there would only take them when they were seriously injured.
REPORTER: What was his ailment?
TKACHUK: There was a lot of swelling under a filling. If there is such swelling, it can go further, and the person could die. … The soldiers came once a week, sometimes twice. I told them that we are women, and we would not accept them with automatic guns, and that they should leave their weapons at reception. … I took them immediately to the surgical room and examined them there.
I removed their teeth because that’s what they asked for. They were so young, the soldiers.
REPORTER: How old are you?
TKACHUK: I am 61 years old. I graduated from Bogomolets National Medical University in Kyiv. I told my colleagues: We will survive only because of our professionalism.
We women withstood. There wasn’t even a tampon in the hospital, they cut sheets instead, I’m a witness. On February 24, the pharmacy was still working. I ran in and said, “The war has started.” One of my colleagues ran away after a week. We gathered our team, which I have been in charge of for a long time. I said, “Calm down, everyone, this is a war and it will not be over in one day.”
I told them, probably two or three days before we were liberated: “Understand one thing — you will rob us, you will even kill us, but you will not live better. We live to defend this.”
REPORTER: Do you remember any of the soldiers? You said that one was from Maikop. …
TKACHUK: There were two Russians: One of them was so blue-eyed — I remember him because I simply put arsenic paste in his cavity with cotton wool and he felt better. He started smoking cigarettes. That’s how I remember it. And he said: “How can I … you now? You helped me.” I think he wanted to say, “How am I going to shoot you now?” I watched them go out. … I said, “Don’t shoot, please, at least at peaceful people, or you will have to pay for it in the afterlife.”
He had brought an escort with him, another soldier who sat in a chair. I spoke with them in Ukrainian. One said, “Speak more slowly.”
REPORTER: Didn’t they ask you to switch to Russian?
TKACHUK: No. Not one. Maybe it’s just because everyone is afraid of dentists? Honestly, that’s how it seemed to me.
REPORTER: How did they change over the course of those nine months?
TKACHUK: I told them, “You have to understand one thing: You have already robbed us in such a way that you cannot imagine.” First they were after our machines, and then our drills. In short, everything was taken. I told them, probably two or three days before we were liberated: “Understand one thing — you will rob us, you will even kill us, but you will not live better. Go, restore order in your country. In order for us … to live so well, our people burned on Maidan [Square]. We live to defend all this.”
At one point, I said, “Show me your first-aid kit.” And he showed me: He had grenades, just like that, you could grab the ring out. They were very afraid of being captured. And here were their prepared grenades, if they were suddenly captured. …
REPORTER: Because they were afraid?
TKACHUK: Yes, to be captured … We were and are proud of our nation. Let God give more strength to our boys from the Ukrainian armed forces. Let retribution come soon.