"When I came in, he first told me how he saved two people in our village - a mother with two children," she said.īut then the soldier, who Dasha later learned was from Donetsk and called "Blue" by other soldiers, became violent. "First, he (the drunk soldier) called my mother into another room. Those stories are helping to paint a pattern of a Russian military, pockmarked by criminal behavior and, in this case, the alleged assault of a minor at her most vulnerable.ĭasha said that when the children, a 12 and 14-year-old girl, saw the soldiers in their kitchen, they were frightened. While the unrestrained violence around Kyiv has embodied the pointless savagery of Russia's onslaught against civilians, dark and untold stories of their brutality in tiny, distant villages, like Dasha's, in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, are slowly emerging. WATCH: Omar Sachedina on Ukrainian paramedics training civilians.
The men let the children enter the kitchen to eat, Dasha said. They were hiding from the Russians, who had fired shots into the air, at cars - and at people.īut when the children resurfaced, they were greeted by two unwanted guests - Russian soldiers. When Dasha and the other children emerged from their basement and into their newly occupied village it was for food. WARNING: This story contains details that are disturbing