A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Today is the third-year anniversary of the liberation of Bucha, a suburb north of Kyiv. It was under Russian occupation for a month, right after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. Ukraine has asked for the destruction there to be investigated as a crime against humanity. Russia denies it committed war crimes. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley is in Bucha. Eleanor, remind us what happened there.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Yeah. Well, A, the Russian army arrived here just a few days after the invasion. They were coming from the north, but they got bogged down and ended up staying in Bucha for 33 days. Their headquarters was a school here. And when they were finally pushed out, the world discovered the carnage - through physical evidence and the stories of those who had survived. More than 400 civilians were killed. People were shot at point-blank range in the street and left to rot. Old men were shot off their bicycles. People were held in basements for weeks. Many were tortured, and a mass grave was found on the church grounds.
You might remember some of the pictures of that one street that was completely destroyed, with the burned-out Russian tanks and also the dead bodies just lying in the streets for weeks. It completely shocked Ukrainians and the world, frankly, and it became a kind of moral turning point for this war. Of course, as you said, Russia has always denied it. They say fake videos were created of the whole thing.
MARTÍNEZ: So what's it like today, and how are they marking this liberation?
BEARDSLEY: Well, we've driven up here. It's about 25 miles northwest of Kyiv. It's a very nice suburb - well-off, you know, surrounded by pine forests - and everything that was destroyed has been rebuilt. And while there are no real signs of the - physically what happened, the mental wounds are still deep. There's a wall of names of those killed on the church ground, and they're planning a much bigger memorial project. It will be kind of a memory space to tell the story of the 33 days of occupation, not through numbers and dates but through an interactive experience where visitors will go down into a tunnel and then emerge again into the light. And today, President Zelenskyy is supposed to participate in a ceremony this afternoon with some of the soldiers who helped liberate this town.
MARTÍNEZ: Eleanor, what are the residents of Bucha telling you?
BEARDSLEY: Well, I spoke with 43-year-old Dmitro, who actually came here three years ago from Mariupol, the Ukrainian city on the Black Sea that was besieged and destroyed by Russia in the first weeks of the war. He preferred not to give his last name because he may be conscripted into the army. He told me he wished President Trump would come here himself with his staff to see what happened and to see how we live, he said.
DMITRO: It's Ukraine. It's not Russia. It's not part of some Russian colony. We are a different nation. We are different people. We have different goals. We have different values.
BEARDSLEY: And, you know, I asked him, A, what are those values? And he had one word.
DMITRO: Freedom is the most - freedom, freedom and freedom.
BEARDSLEY: So, you know, many Ukrainians told me, three years on, as war fatigue sets in, the world really needs to be reminded of what happened here and to remember that Ukraine is not just fighting for its territory. It's fighting for its identity, its very existence, and fighting to prevent atrocities like what happened in Bucha.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Eleanor Beardsley in Bucha, Ukraine. Eleanor, thanks.
BEARDSLEY: You're welcome, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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