Lukashivka near Chernihiv year on after liberation: 32 houses completely destroyed, every single one damaged

This church survived the collapse of empires and World War II. The Soviet authorities used it as a grain warehouse. The Russian occupiers turned it into an ammunition depot, and Ukrainians were killed in its courtyard.

Lukashivka was under occupation from March 9 to 30, 2022. Some stories people dared to tell only now, a year after the liberation. The memories of locals and defenders are presented in 10 episodes.

Battle for Lukashivka

At the entrance to the village there is an aspen cross tied with a towel. The villagers believe that it is their amulet. Since last spring, many crosses, pine planks, and other homemade "memorials" have been installed around the village: next to destroyed buildings, near the farm, under trees on the outskirts. This is how the locals honor the soldiers who died here while defending the village.

According to various sources, there were between 100 and 150 Ukrainian soldiers in Lukashivka. Soldiers of the 2nd consolidated rifle company of the 21st Separate Rifle Battalion and the 16th Battalion of the 58th Brigade arrived after March 6. But the forces were unequal. On March 9, after an artillery attack, the Russians launched an offensive with heavy equipment.

The battle started at 7 am and lasted until almost 2 pm.

On the southern outskirts of the village is a village farm called Rosa. Along its territory there is a rampart and a ditch that were dug in 1997 by order of the then owner. He wanted to prevent thieves from stealing food, fuel, and other property from the farm. And 25 years later, this ditch became a fortification for Ukrainian military.

Historian and soldier Serhiy Lepiavko took part in the battles for Lukashivka. On March 9, 2023, he and farmer Hryhoriy Tkachenko honored the fallen.

“We were fighting. But we were surrounded, running out of ammunition. We were ordered to withdraw. I went out across the field with a group of 46 people. The rest of the guys later retreated in groups of two, three, six. Several groups were captured. Some were shot. Even today, we do not know exactly how many of our people were killed. After the village was liberated, we identified 10 bodies from my battalion. Approximately the same number were from the 58th Brigade. But no more people came back," explains Lepiavko.

Behind the moat, closer to the village, there is a white minibus riddled with shrapnel. People have laid a path of carnations near it. Serhiy Lepiavko says that the military used to evacuate the wounded in this vehicle.

Butusin brothers

200-300 meters from the battlefield, in the yard, there are two wooden crosses: one small and one bigger. On it are photos of two guys. These are brothers Roman and Leonid Butusin. They are ethnic Russians. The family moved from Russia to western Ukraine in 2014, when the Russian military occupied Crimea and started fighting in Donbas. There were 12 children in the family. The guys' father, Oleh Butusin, and brother, Hryhoriy, are also defending Ukraine.

On March 9, 2022, at 8 am, one of the brothers called Hryhoriy Tkachenko, the owner of the Naporivske farm. He warned him about the Russian offensive.

"I am amazed at their courage and humanity. There was a battle going on. They obviously knew it was over, but they were thinking about other people," says Tkachenko.

He met the Butusin brothers when he was delivering lunches to the military — the entrepreneur had been organizing meals for the defenders since the beginning of the invasion. He helped the residents of his own and neighboring villages with food.

On the anniversary of the battle, the brother of the victims, Hryhoriy Butusin, came to Lukashivka. During the occupation of the village, he and his brothers-in-arms tried to get here. They failed.

"On March 13, my brothers-in-arms and I approached Lukashivka. We went through a ditch to the forest. We saw the enemy and his equipment through a thermal imager. There were not enough of us. That's why we returned. After the village was liberated, our father found the bodies of our brothers," says Hryhoriy Butusin.

March snow

Oleksandr worked as a trucker. During the invasion, he joined the army as a driver. On March 6, he brought anti-tank "hedgehogs" to Lukashivka. His vehicle turned into a pile of burnt scrap metal.

"In the morning, a column of Russian armored vehicles started moving. An infantry fighting vehicle was coming towards us. I saw the executive officer take out a grenade. He had a communication device that was not supposed to get to the Russians. I realized what was going on. There was an RPG nearby. For good measure, I asked: ‘Should I shoot?’ He replied: "Go for it". I fired and hit," Oleksandr recalls with sadness and a smile.

Many of his colleagues were killed in that battle. But Oleksandr didn't know many of them as he didn't have time to get to know them.

"Then we were ordered to retreat. We had to go across the field. I thought we would fall. But it started to snow thickly. It meant that neither the ‘birds’ nor the optics could see us. So we went out under the cover of that March snow," the man says.

Milkmaids on the battlefield

Not only the military were at the epicenter of the battle. Natalia Pats, 59, came to the farm to milk the cows at about 6:30 am. Ukrainian soldiers were also stationed there.

"My partner and I had just taken the milking machines, and it just went bang! The doors were wide open. There was shooting, explosions, and shrapnel flying all around. We dropped into a corner. I heard our soldiers screaming in pain. There was a medic at the farm, he bandaged them, gave them injections. They took their assault rifles again and returned to the battle with bandaged arms and legs," Natalia Pats can barely contain her emotions.

The women stayed on the concrete floor for almost seven hours. Natalia was taken out of the farm by her son Vitaliy when the shelling subsided. On the way, she saw dead soldiers.

The bodies of the defenders lay in the open air until Lukashivka was liberated. But it is not known whether they were all dead. Locals say that there was a mobile crematorium in the village: for two days there was a stench in the air. It is not known whether the Russians burned only their own people there.

Witness

Vitaliy Pats lives on the outskirts of Lukashivka. From the windows of his house he could see how the Russians were clearing the village in the first hours of the occupation.

"After March 9, there were shootings for three more days. The guys who didn't have time to leave with everyone else were hiding. The Russians took six of our guys prisoner right here at the red gate. The guys dressed in civilian clothes, but the third clearing group exposed them. I do not know about their fate. I saw them being led away with their hands tied," says Vitaliy Pats.

A few meters away is a birch forest. There are many trees broken by shells. At least two defenders fought their last battle here.

"A young soldier from Vinnytsia Oblast was lying there in the pines. His name was Zhenya, 23 years old. Shrapnel hit him in the neck, he died. And Viktor Maksymenko was killed near a pine tree. I saw a Russian armored personnel carrier arrive, 10 people surrounded him and shot him," Vitaliy points to the place where the roses are lying. He had seen the documents of the killed, but did not know them personally.

The flowers were left by Viktor Maksymenko's wife, Oksana. She came to the scene of the tragedy. She was crying, supported by her family, so that she would not fall down from powerlessness and sadness. No one dares to approach her.

Oksana learned of her husband's death on April 10, when the body was brought to the morgue in Chernihiv. Throughout March, the family stayed in a village a few kilometers from Lukashivka. They had no idea that Viktor was fighting nearby. He is also survived by two children.

On the same day, Sergeant Mykola Avdiyienko was killed at about 10 am. A few hours earlier, Russians had shot at the car in which his wife and daughter were trying to evacuate Chernihiv. So on the same day, a few kilometers from each other, the whole family died.

On the anniversary of the battle, Mykola's mother Tamara came to Lukashivka. The woman collects the smallest evidence to recreate that day in detail. She does not know exactly where her son died.

Killing of civilians

We are walking along a small alleyway that leads off the main street in Lukashivka. On the right, the gate has a worn inscription "Children". A dog and puppies are barking and a cat is running around. A bent metal fence and a burned car remind us that there were histilities here.

This house was bought by a couple, Oksana Dehterenko and Oleksandr Skorokhod, even before the coronavirus pandemic kicked in. Together with their son Artem, they moved here from Chernihiv.

"The Russians came to our house at 5 pm on March 9. The shelling started, and the six of us hid in the cellar — me, Sasha, our 9-year-old son Artem and three Russians. They told us not to be afraid, that no one would touch us. Sasha told them that they had come to war in vain, that they would be better off in jail in Russia than die here. He was emotional, he did not keep his mouth shut," Oksana recalls.

When the shelling ended, the occupiers began to check the documents. They saw different surnames, so they had doubts that Oksana and Oleksandr were married. They questioned the son about his father's name. The boy was scared and confused.

Oksana left for a moment to hide the documents after the inspection. When she returned, she saw her husband leaving the gate with the occupiers.

After the village was liberated, she learned that they had killed Oleksandr on March 29, the day before they left. Before that, they tortured him: he had a fractured skull and numerous cuts on his body. The investigation is probing what exactly happened.

"After the release, my son and I left the village for a while. I was informed about Sashko's death by phone. The facts were convincing: his passport and phone were found on him, and his brother saw the photo of his body. But I could not believe it for six months. I was looking for his name among the prisoners," Oksana cannot hold back her tears.

"I remember sitting in the cellar that day. I started to panic. Sasha sat me on his lap and rocked me like a baby. I was nervous and pushed him away. And now it is my greatest desire to sit in his arms," the woman says wistfully.

At least 11 villagers died during the occupation. Two other local men were shot dead along with Oleksandr. A grandmother, grandfather and two of their grandchildren burned to death because of a direct hit of a tank shell to the house. One man died of shrapnel wounds, another committed suicide. Another went to the well to fetch water and, according to locals, dropped dead from fear. A woman with cancer died in agony without medication.

Superhuman abilities

Oleksandr Skorokhod equipped a large, spacious cellar. He made high flooring and installed a grill. On the night he was taken away, Oksana and her son stayed there overnight. She heard footsteps. "Is anyone home?" The soldier, who was wounded in the leg, managed to hobble from the farm to their yard. He asked for help. Oksana is a seamstress by profession and works as a manicurist. She does not know how she remembered the medical skills in her head.

"That guy had a bullet wound to the thigh, and shrapnel cut his leg from below. It was like in a movie. I boiled water on the grill. I took off his old bandage and threw it into the fire. I pulled out the shrapnel and made a bandage. I fed him. He could barely walk, so he stayed with us for the night," the woman recalls.

The soldier's name was Dmytro Malyi. He was from the village of Anysiv, eight kilometers from Lukashivka.

The next day, Oksana and her son went home, while Dmytro stayed in the cellar. In the late afternoon, the woman saw through the window that the occupiers had entered the cellar.

Dmytro hid under the wooden flooring when he heard the Russians. Then he climbed into the attic of a nearby workshop. At night, he tried to escape from the village through the vegetable gardens. After Lukashivka was liberated, Dmytro's body was found near Hryhoriy Tkachenko's farm. The soldier had been shot in the head and back.

Valentyna and the tankers

The house of 65-year-old Valentyna Leheza is located 200 meters from the farm where the battle took place. There are many broken houses and fences on both sides. The Russians drove through them with heavy equipment.

The woman lives alone. During the occupation, she and her neighbor Liubov Hyrchenko hid three tankers for a week. This is the first time Valentyna decided to tell the public about this.

"We used to get together. We spent the night in turns: either at Liuba's or at my place. Her house is across the garden. Once we were walking from her house to my house, I noticed people in the yard. It was getting dark. We went to the yard. One of them said: ‘Do not be afraid, we are our own’. When he spoke Ukrainian, my heart sank," says Valentyna Leheza with tears.

It was the crew of a tank. The Russians had knocked it out, but the soldiers escaped. At first they ran into an abandoned house and lay on the floor. And when the enemy retreated, they got changed when they found some clothes in the house and ran at random. That's how they ended up at Valentyna's house.

Every day, the military tried to reach their own, who were in the neighboring village. But they could not. There were seven to eight Russian patrols walking the streets.

They were lucky that the occupiers did not enter the house. Although they did knock on the door twice.

"We were not afraid. You know what kind of guys they are! Serhiy from Chernihiv, Sasha from Mena district and Vitaliy from Varvynske — he is the oldest. They are decent men," says Valentyna.

One evening, the military finally left the village. Three days later, Valentyna found out that the guys were alive: her daughter called her from Chernihiv, informed by one of the tankers.

"Liuba and I burst into tears. If the Russians hadn't stolen the cognac, we probably would have drunk it out of happiness," Valentyna jokes through her tears.

Serhiy and Vitaliy came to thank the women for the rescue. The latter received a second concussion in the east, and his son was killed in the war. Valentyna is in touch with Oleksandr by phone: he is fighting in the east.

After the liberation of the village, Liubov Hyrchenko went to her relatives in Poland.

Executions near the church

Before the war, 290 people lived in Lukashivka, and at the time of the occupation there were between 600 and 1,000. Many iDPs from Chernihiv came here, thinking that the Russians would not enter the village. In one house, and most often in the cellar, 10-15 people found shelter. Enemies often settled in the houses of locals.

On February 24, Nadiya Denysevych's children, grandchildren and in-laws came to visit her. There were 13 of them. The occupiers checked everyone's documents and phones. They found a message from her grandson, 17-year-old Dmytro: "Shit, we already have separatists". The guy wrote to his girlfriend that the village was under occupation. This angered the Russians.

In the morning of March 10, they brought a guy in civilian clothes to Nadiya's yard. He was badly beaten. The shelling started, and everyone hid in the cellar.

"The boy was a child: huge brown eyes, bloodshot, his head was bandaged. He was shaking with pain. He only managed to say that he was from Sumy Oblast, his surname was Nazarenko," says Denysevych.

The Russians found him in the house of another local woman. She said he was her nephew, but the occupiers did not believe her. The guy was tortured. He confessed that he was a soldier.

When the shelling ended, the Russians took Nazarenko, a prisoner of war, and Nadiya Denysevych's grandson and son-in-law. The men were blindfolded and taken to a church. They removed the blindfolds from Dmytro and Nazarenko. The soldier was shot at close range.

Nazarenko's body was thrown near the church under a KamAZ truck. It stayed there until the village was liberated.

Life goes on

A year has passed. People and farms are recovering from their losses. During the occupation, 158 out of 316 cows at Naporivske survived. Rosa, which was in the epicenter of the battle, lost almost 150 out of 200 cows. Some of the cattle were killed by shelling, some were killed by the occupiers for food, and the rest were killed for entertainment.

"I am from Anysiv. I came here for the first time after the liberation on March 30 last year. There was mud everywhere, cow carcasses, everything was smashed. We drove around with the farm owners for a week. We would stand and look and then go back. We didn't know where to start. Then we started to restore the farm a little bit," says Rosa driver-mechanic Serhiy Dzvonnyk.

It is impossible to restore the farm's hangars. The cows live in a partially destroyed building. But the fields are being cultivated. They admit that the season was difficult: they collected 10-20 liters of diesel fuel from all the gas stations.

They were unable to harvest 10 hectares of winter rye. This area is in the epicenter of the fighting. There are still rockets sticking out of the ground, and in some places the field resembles an armored vehicle graveyard.

In Naporivske, cattle are not yet bought, but the fields are sown.

During the occupation, 32 houses in the village were completely destroyed. Every single one of them was damaged. People have restored some of them on their own. Volunteers are helping: they have rebuilt four houses and are working on the fifth.

The school is also being restored — the roof has already been covered. There will be no classes there because there are too few children in the village. The building will be equipped with a library, an assembly hall and a medical center. It was bombed during the fighting, and people are waiting for a paramedic. Currently, patients have to travel to Anysiv or Chernihiv. A minibus runs three times a day, but it does not go directly, but through villages. When the Desna crossing is closed, the only way to get to the city is by train from Anysiv: you have to cycle eight kilometers there.

Over the year, the shell craters have been filled in, but many people still have wounds in their souls: you can feel it in their conversations, looks, and behavior. Still, people are bolder to talk about their experiences. Children play on playgrounds where there are remnants of shells lying around, and they kick a ball around at the stadium where the equipment broken by the war has not yet been removed. They give people hope that life goes on.

The text was prepared by the platform Memorial, which tells the stories of civilians killed by Russia and fallen Ukrainian soldiers. To report data on Ukraine's losses, fill out the forms: for fallen military and civilian victims.

Author: Natalia Naidiuk