Testimony
War in Ukraine: in Boutcha, after the death of her son, Olga expects nothing from justice
Olga Petrova, lost her son in Boutcha.
He was shot in the head, she said, during the occupation of the city by Russian forces.
She prefers to remain anonymous.
© Sami Boukhelifa/RFI
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
A first trial for war crimes is due to open this Wednesday in Ukraine.
A young Russian soldier is accused of shooting a 62-year-old man who died near Sumy in the north of the country.
A village illustrates the atrocities that would have been committed by the Russians during the occupation: that of Boutcha, near kyiv, where hundreds of civilians would have been victims of atrocities.
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With our special correspondents,
Murielle Paradon
and
Sami Boukhelifa
It is a bruised woman who receives us in her modest house in Boutcha.
Olga Petrova, 68, evokes the painful memory of her son Yevhen, who disappeared during the Russian occupation.
He was only found by the police on April 14, two weeks after the city was liberated, in an unoccupied house.
“
Residents of Boutcha returned to their homes after the occupation.
And they saw grenades hanging on their door.
So they called the police or deminers, I don't know.
Then they entered and there they saw the body of my son, with a bullet in the head, behind,
testifies Olga.
As he had a passport on him, the police were able to identify him.
She took a picture and came to my house.
I recognized him, despite the state of the body, he was my son
”.
Yevhen was 45 years old, a wife and three children.
An ordinary man, according to his mother, a worker who since the beginning of the war had been volunteering.
But while the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has announced the dispatch of
more than 40 investigators and experts
to work on war crimes in Ukraine, Olga Petrova expects nothing from justice.
“
I don't expect any response, because I'm sure there were no witnesses.
Otherwise he would have died next to him.
I believe in divine justice.
It is up there that those who did this will be punished.
What kind of man can be capable of that?
Especially since my son didn't do anything.
He was only helping his neighbors by distributing medicine.
Justice ?
I don't really care, I lost my son
, ”laments the old lady.
Despite the pain, Olga claims to have no sense of revenge.
"
I don't wish harm on anyone
," she said.
► To read also: "I turned my head, I saw all these corpses on the ground": Boutcha, an open-air cemetery
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