At Least 200 Feared Dead in Apartments Hit by Russia, Officials Say

BORODYANKA, Ukraine – Andreiy Ziuzko stands near the razed apartment block in Borodyanka that was once his home, his belongings in plastic bags on the sidewalk next to a few burnt cooking pots Tuesday.

The building had been in ruins for weeks, attacked shortly after the fighting sent him and his family on the run. It wasn’t until a moment later that he explained that something even worse had happened. His mother lived a few doors down, and her apartment was also bombed.

Mr. Ziuzko said: ‘Mother’s house was attacked on the same day. “I can’t find her.”

Russian troops recently withdrew from the area around Borodyanka, a Ukrainian commuter town near the capital Kyiv that was among the first hit by Russian air strikes after the invasion. Currently, dozens of people sheltering in basements or apartments are missing and presumed dead under the rubble, the acting mayor said on Tuesday.

Georgii Yerko, acting mayor of Borodyanka, said: “We think more than 200 people have died. “But that’s an assumption.”

On Tuesday, New York Times journalists arrived in the town for the first time after the withdrawal of Russian troops. The scars left behind are shocking, with large wounds slicing through the multi-story complexes along the main street. Residents said four apartment buildings had collapsed in the bombing, their floors crushed to the ground like concert halls. Fierce fighting left more destruction for two miles along the main street.

Russia’s retreat from areas around Kyiv in recent days has revealed evidence of abuses that have captured the world’s attention. In places like Bucha, a suburb near the capital just a few miles from Borodyanka, the focus is on evidence that Ukrainian civilians have been killed by Russian forces, including Hand tied body and who was shot at close range.

In Borodyanka and elsewhere, the focus is on evidence that civilian buildings have been indiscriminately targeted. The topic was at the heart of discussions at the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday.

Rosemary DiCarlo, UN peace-building and political affairs officer, told the Security Council that explosive weapons have caused death and devastation in many populated areas, destroying infrastructure floors include residential buildings, hospitals, schools, water stations and electrical systems.

UN received credible accusations that Russia used bombs, cluster munitions – prohibited weapons fire small explosive mines over a wide area – in densely populated areas at least 24 times, Ms. DiCarlo said. She added that there are allegations that Ukrainian forces have also used cluster munitions.

Ms DiCarlo told the council: “Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law and can constitute war crimes.

Borodyanka once had about 13,000 inhabitants, and the town – a simple, unpretentious place, as one resident described it – was built along a highway intersection. That convergence is an attraction for those working in Kyiv, just a short drive to the southeast, and for Russian troops and their convoys to begin landings in the northern part of the land. countries to try to blockade the capital in the last days of February.

Residents say that Russian forces began entering the town around February 27, and volunteers with the Ukrainian territorial defense force then attacked one of the convoys. Then, Russian soldiers started shooting at cars and buildings as they drove through the town, said Valerii Vishnyak, a resident. “It was just lawlessness,” he said.

Then, late on March 1, Russian jets roared overhead. “We are sitting in the cellar,” said Tamara Vishnyak, Vishnyak’s mother. “The plane was flying very low. I counted three seconds and the bomb fell.” The bomb went through the building across the street.

Mr. Ziuzko, 43, said that the only reason he and his family escaped the air strikes was because they fled a nearby building when the fighting broke out.

He said he did not know where his mother, 66-year-old Svetlana Ziuzko, was at the time the bomb fell, whether in her apartment or in a bomb shelter. His voice was catchy, he said he couldn’t remember the last time he saw her.

“The back of the building is gone; only the balcony was there,” he said, pointing to a sixth-floor balcony suspended from the vacuum cleaner.

Behind the building, two women watched while their husbands climbed down into the basement next to the destroyed section. Tanya Hachnikova, 36, said her husband is trying to find his parents, who live in the apartment complex. The second woman, Oksana Dikan, 43, was looking for a colleague who lived there and was also missing.

They said they thought up to 20 people were living in the building when it was impacted, but two men who climbed out said they were unable to get into the basement beneath the rubble. “We need help, and we need equipment,” Ms. Dikan said later by phone.

Many fled the town to escape fighting that had raged for days, until a protracted Ukrainian counter-offensive forced Russian troops to retreat last week. Mr. Yerko, acting mayor, said that digging up the bodies would have to wait. The first task, he said, was to reconnect electricity and remove unexploded ordinances and clear the rubble.

Yaroslav, an information technology professional who asked for his name only to be released to avoid identification, was climbing onto a bench to peer into a gutted apartment he said belonged to his parents. They had left, with only their documents and cat, a day before the bomb hit the building, he said. There were almost certainly people living in their apartments and hiding in bunkers when the air strikes, he said.

When asked if the Ukrainian military would use the building, he said no. “What army? My parents lived there. “

Ivor Prickett Contribution reports from Borodyanka, Ukraine, and Farnaz Fassihi from New York.