Devastated mum weeps over grave that she dug for son, 27, gunned down by Putin’s troops
A GRIEVING mother has wept over the grave she dug for her son in Ukraine after he was killed by the Russians.
Iryna Kostenko’s son Oleksei was going to work changing tyres at a garage when he was gunned by down at their home in the town of Bucha on March 10.
It comes as Volodymyr Zelensky fought back tears as he visited the town where Vladimir Putin’s troops have been accused of butchering civilians and burying them in mass graves.
The Ukrainian President was flanked by security as he vowed to ensure that the “war crimes” committed by Russian soldiers on his country’s soil were “the last such evil on Earth”.
Iryna sobbed over the grave of her son and told the BBC: “The pain is so bad. Now I’m all alone. My son was young, 27 years old. He wanted to stay alive.
“They were in jeeps with guns. They killed him and fled. How can I talk to such morons. I want them dead.”
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After he was Oleksei was killed, Iryna was forced to flee her home as the Russians took over her home
Vodka, gin, whisky, rum and beer bottles are scattered in her garden.
The house as damaged by shelling and when Iryna returned to the property, she had to move Oleksei’s body back home in a wheelbarrow from the road.
“I covered the grave with a blanket to protect it from the dogs,” said Iryna, as she kissed a picture of her dead son.
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“He isn’t in a coffin, I had to roll him in a carpet. This is my love. My sweetheart.”
Harrowing pictures from the city, to the north-west of the capital Kyiv, showed the bodies of civilians scattered in the road and in shallow graves — many with bound hands and signs of torture.
Some of them, from the wounds they had suffered, had been shot from close range.
A satellite image taken of Bucha at the end of last month, when Russian forces were in control of the city, shows a 45ft long mass grave dug behind a church.
It comes as…
- Russia has been branded ‘worse than ISIS’ after more than 400 civilians were reportedly executed in Bucha
- Boris Johnson has slammed Russia’s ‘despicable attacks’ and vowed ‘we will not rest until justice is done’
- A Ukrainian mayor and her husband and son were executed west of Kyiv, with their bodies dumped in a shallow grave
- Harrowing footage shows a distraught mum uncovering her daughter’s shallow grave after Russian troops withdrew
- The wreck of Russia’s newest £38m fighter jet has been pictured, after Putin’s flagship aircraft was shot out of the sky over Ukraine
- Putin’s mysterious ‘Rasputin’ figure who wants Russia to rule over all of Europe has been profiled
Ukrainian and Western leaders have accused Russia of carrying out the massacre of civilians and dumping their bodies in makeshift burial plots.
Ukraine’s prosecutor-general said the bodies of 410 civilians have been recovered from towns surrounding Kyiv after last week’s withdrawal of Russian troops.
In total, 161 children have died and 264 have been injured since the Russian invasion, according to Ukrainian officials.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelensky, said scores of dead civilians were found on the streets of Bucha and the Kyiv suburbs of Irpin and Hostomel in what looked like a “scene from a horror movie”.
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