After the world learned of the atrocities committed by the Russian military in the Ukrainian village of Bucha, an investigation by Meduza, an independent outlet, has come with a similar story about another village near Kiev. 

Bohdanivka, a village in Brovary District about ten kilometers north-east of the Ukrainian capital, was the place of at least three murders and two rapes during its occupation by Russian troops until they withdrew in late March.

To obtain an accurate picture of these (and other) crimes, Meduza journalists have spoken with local residents, verified their testimonies, and reconstructed the events from 8 March to 29 March 2022, when the Russians were stationed in Bohdanivka.

The occupation started when a column of military vehicles – tanks, armored personnel carriers and armored infantry support vehicles, presumably from the 6th or 239th Tank Regiment of the Chelyabinsk region, passed through the main street and headed towards Kiev. They were immediately ambushed and attacked by Ukrainian artillery.

In the evening of 8 March, having taken heavy losses, the Russians began hiding the surviving tanks and carriers throughout the village. The soldiers received orders to “clean up” the settlement, meaning to find all men with military experience and possible members of the local defense forces, and to wait for reinforcements.

On 9 March, a group of soldiers conducting house-to-house searches and reached the eastern outskirts of Bohdanivka, Zalesskaya Street, where some residents remained inside their homes.

The testimonies of those people allowed Meduza to reconstruct the crimes of Russian military.

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The commander of the unit involved in the search in Bohdanivka was Mikhail Romanov. He did not hide his face and even asked the locals to find him on social media, a fact that made it easy for Meduza to identify him. Corroborating other evidence, the journalists learned that the man was a professional military from Chebarkul in Chelyabinsk Region, and his official residence address) was one of three military bases: No. 93992, 89547, or 87441.

At around 10 p.m. on 9 March, Russian soldiers shot dead locksmith Alexey Rudenko, mistaking him for a Ukrainian military because of his khaki-designed fishing pants hanging in his toilet. He died in the arms of his young daughter.

At around midnight, Romanov and an unidentified soldier in black uniform shot a second local resident—Alexey Zdorovets, a former elected official from the nearby city of Brovary.

Then, both Russians raped his 55-year-old wife for two hours, locking their young son in the boiler room. The soldiers buried Zdorovets' body in the yard and burned down the house. They also killed all the family's dogs .

The woman managed to escape later and provided a witness account to investigators. 

On March 23, another murder occurred in the northern part of the village, near the forest. A witness who asked to be called Konstantin told Meduza that a Russian soldier burst into his house and – getting startled by a ringing mobile phone – shot dead his father-in-law, who was unarmed. The man's body was found a week later in the same place, with a gunshot wound to the head.

Another rape in Bohdanivka took place on 28 March, just a few days before the end of the Russian occupation. Unidentified Russian soldiers broke into Svetlana Perminova's house in search of valuables and raped her in the basement.

Perminova suffered a breakdown and intended to commit suicide. Her husband, Eduard Shpilevoy, had left the village during the occupation to help the Ukrainian army. In mid-April, he was found dead in the basement of a private house in the neighboring village of Shevchenkovo, with signs of torture, along with other six bodies.

The Russian troops withdrew from Bohdanivka on 30 March, leaving mines throughout the village. According to surviving locals, during their stay in Bohdanivka, looting and drinking alcohol were the main activities of Russian soldiers.

Mikhail Romanov, a non-commissioned Russian officer, once felt sorry for his actions during one of his frequent drinking sprees, saying "Do you think I want this? I'm sick. I'm insane."

During the same period, Russian troops were committing war crimes in Bucha.

Currently, forensic experts and mine experts are working in Bohdanivka.