The story starts in mid-March, almost a month after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Many of us had relatives living in Mykolaiv. We knew the city would come under attack, so we brought our loved ones back to Lotskino. We believed it would be safe, that the Russians would surely not be interested in our sleepy little village.”

They were wrong. On the morning of 16 March, Russian armour started rolling through the area on its way to Mykolaiv.

The Russian troops easily overran a makeshift checkpoint that was manned by some local men, killing a youth in the process. The defenders never stood a chance. They were armed with hunting shotguns. The Russians came with tanks, troop carriers and automatic weapons.

Some of the units camped in the village. They set up two headquarters – one in a warehouse, for the Russian soldiers, and another in a white and red brick building for the accompanying so-called DNR (Donetsk People’s Republic) fighters.

Vehicles that broke during the march to Mykolaiv were left in the village, to be recovered later. The Russians left their ammunition inside. They also turned some buildings into ammo and weapons storehouses.

Some of the men broke in and stole ammunition. Sergii, who was known for his strong patriotism, was among them.

Soldiers looted shops, stole cars

The soldiers, Tetiana (above) says, robbed all the shops and stole cars belonging to the residents. They set up checkpoints across the village and built a maze of trenches around them. “They would check our documents and often refuse to allow us to use the roads.”

She says there was friction between the Russian soldiers and the DNR unit, which at one point culminated in a shootout between the two sides.

Some of the villagers were informing the Ukrainian armed forces about the Russian troop movements. The loyalty of some others, however, lay elsewhere.

Tetiana says there were at least two men in the village who started collaborating with the Russians. The soldiers were interested in men who had served in the 2014 Eastern war and the collaborators were helping them find them.

Back at the family home, Sergii (above), a retired maths and IT teacher turned farmer, took one of his blood pressure pills and lay dawn on the sofa.

Minutes later, a group of Russian soldiers drove up to the house on a BTR (a type of armoured personnel carrier). There were around 15 of them.

Betrayed by a collaborator

Sergii went outside to see what was happening and was quickly apprehended by the Russians. “They did not even ask who he was. I believe someone had given them his name. They grabbed him by the arms, threw him into the BTR and drove off. He was wearing flip-flops. It was a cold day, and he did not even have a hat and a coat with him.”

“The soldiers said Sergii had a machine gun and wanted us to hand it over. We told them we had no such weapon in the house.”

Tetiana believes that a collaborator who lived nearby ratted Sergii out because of his pro-Ukrainian sentiment – something which he never tried to hide, not even at school.

This informer had even fallen out with his two sons, who had joined the territorial defence force in the nearby town of Bashtanka. “He used to invite the Russians over for dinner and is still in touch with his relatives in Russia.”

The soldiers came back to search the house for a second time in the afternoon. This time, they found some of the bullets that Sergii had stolen.

 

‘Don’t worry, he was not beaten’

“The next morning, just as I was about to go to the Russian base to take some food to Sergii, they brought him back home. One of the soldiers said ‘don’t worry, he was not beaten. Well, at least my comrade and I did not beat him’. But I could immediately see that he had been abused. His arm was in a sling. They had shot him in the elbow. His wrist was swollen and blue.”

The soldiers refused to let her treat his wound, insisting that their own doctor would see to it. One of them administered a shot to his arm. They searched the house again, including the sheds, then took Sergii away again.

A few hours later, she went to the Russian base with some food. A soldier told her Sergii was not there. He had been taken to the brick house.

She went to the house but was stopped at a checkpoint. A soldier said he would check for her but came back a few minutes later telling her that Sergii was not there, either. 

 

A desperate search

Desperate for answers, Tetiana went back to the Russian HQ. She saw several tanks and other military vehicles but didn’t recognise any of the soldiers. One of them told her it was “impossible” that one of his comrades had shot Sergii.

“Our people don’t do that kind of thing,” he told her. The soldier acknowledged, however, that Sergii was still being held, but said he would be home by the evening.

On the way home, she asked two DNR soldiers about her husband. She was told he was still being held by the Russians and that he had been arrested because he was a junior officer in the Azov battalion. Tetiana pleaded with them, explaining that her husband was a retired teacher and had never had any connections with the military. Her pleas fell on deaf ears.

After attending to her elderly in-laws and granddaughters, Tetiana went back to the Russian HQ, only to find it deserted.

 

Gunshots and a horrific discovery

She tried once more to approach the brick house but was stopped again by soldiers. She heard gunfire – a mix of single shots and bursts of automatic fire – coming from behind the nearby railway building. The vehicle Sergii had been taken away in was parked nearby.

On the morning of 18 March, Tetiana was told that the DNR soldiers had vacated the brick building. She and some relatives went there to look for Sergii. “I was hoping to find him alive, perhaps locked in one of the rooms, but he was nowhere to be seen. We also checked the trenches but there was no sign of him.”

Someone told her that Sergii might have been taken to the next village, so she went there to look for him. The search was unsuccessful, so she returned to Lotskino. It was here that Tetiana’s worst fears came true.

“Some local men had found him. They saw his hand sticking out from the ground. He had been dumped in a shallow, square pit. The Russians had tried to cover the body with soil and some mattresses. By the time I arrived, they had dug him out and placed him on the grass.”

Tetiana said her husband was found in a horrific state. “His arms and legs were dislocated, twisted in an unnatural way. I rolled up his jacket and t-shirt and found that he had multiple bullet holes. Some of the wounds looked fresher than others, as if he had been shot again after he was killed. The skin on his fingers was missing. There were many traces of torture.”

‘I kept hoping till the end’

“I was hoping until the very end that I would find him alive,” Tetiana said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

The interview was carried out in the shadow of the white and red brick house, a few metres from where Sergii’s body was found.

How does it feel to come back here, we asked. “I don’t normally come here. This house is cursed.”

Later, she took us to see Sergii’s grave in the local cemetery. The grave was covered with fresh flowers. “Everyone loved him. He was kind, cheerful and popular. He loved his pupils and would often take them on expeditions,” Tetiana told us.

Her partner of 30 years was only 59 years old when he was killed. Sergii was just one of many innocent Ukrainians killed by the Kremlin’s forces since the start of the full-scale war on 24 February.