Kupiansk civilian convoy shelling

The Kupiansk civilian convoy shelling is a crime committed by the Russian military, which took place on September 25, 2022, on the Kurylivka-Pishchane highway near Kupiansk, Kharkiv Oblast. Russian soldiers killed 26 people.

At that time, the section of the road was in the "gray zone",^[5][6] the Ukrainian military was able to reach the scene of the crime on October 1, 2022.

History

On September 27, during the offensive operation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the Russian-occupied territory of the Kharkiv region, the town of Kupyansk-Vuzlovy and nearby villages were deoccupied, and the period of return to peaceful life in the liberated territories began.^[7]

On September 30, on the outskirts of the village of Kurylivka, the Armed Forces of Ukraine found the bodies of civilians in six cars and a van that had been shot and burned out and were trying to leave in the direction of the village of Pishchane.^[8] After publicity about the crime in the mass media, 7 witnesses of the tragedy appeared who managed to escape in the village of Kivsharivka. According to their testimony, on the morning of September 25, their evacuation convoy left Kurylivka in the direction of Svatove, Starobilsk, supposedly through the only road at that time, because all other roads had bridges destroyed, and the village was limited by a river and a swamp. At about 9 o'clock their column was shot by a Russian sabotage group with cross fire from ambushes on one side close to the BMP, on the other — from infantry weapons, which were used to finish off the wounded and those who tried to escape. During the month, law enforcement officers identified all the victims of the motorcade, they turned out to be 48 local residents. Among the dead was a carrier who organized the departure of the refugee convoy that they paid 6,000 Hryvnias per person for evacuation. He turned out to be a former resident of Kupyansk-Vuzlovoi.^[6][9][10]

At that time, the Kurylivka-Pishchane section was in the so-called "gray zone".^[5][6]

During the shooting, two children - 1 years old and 5+1⁄2 years old - managed to escape. The children's parents died in the column.^[11] According to preliminary data, it was known about 24 dead, among them a pregnant woman and 13 children.^[10]

On October 17, 2022, the 26th shooting victim was discovered — a 19-year-old youth was wounded, they died in a forest lane after walking 1.5 kilometers from his injuries.^[11] The victims of those events, who escaped with him, stated that they deliberately left him on the road because he allegedly "bleed and passed out", and they did not want to "drag the unconscious man through the dirt and debris".^[11]

Thus, the number of dead was 26 people,^[11] 22 people managed to escape.^[9]

Some of the physical evidence (the bodies of the victims and the car) was examined by French experts. They discovered signs of the use of 30 mm and 45 mm high-explosive shells, as well as VOG-17 and VOG-25 grenades.^[12]

Victims

As of October 20, 2022, 12 of the 26 shooting victims have been identified. A pregnant woman and 13 children were among the dead.^[9]

10-year-old Pavlo Derevyanko and 12-year-old Maryna Malakhova are in the occupiers' hospital. The girl was first taken to a local hospital with serious injuries, from there they were transferred to Luhansk, the child remained an orphan, the boy's mother died, leaving only his father, who is being blackmailed by the militants of the Russian extremist organization "LNR", offering to give the child only to him personally and to issue Russian citizenship, probably with the aim of involving him in the forced mobilization that Russia is conducting in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. In addition, children were also used in propaganda news, dispersing fakes about the "attack on the convoy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kharkiv Region".^[13]

References