Shot together with his two brothers, thrown into a pit, with his hands and legs tied, he manages to save himself.
The story of Mykola Kulichenko, a 33-year-old Ukrainian from the Bucha region, kidnapped and tortured at the end of March by the Russian military not far from his village, Vyshneve, near Kiev, has an incredible story.
Mykola survives the murderous rampage of a group of Russian soldiers and recounts his odyssey to the Wall Street Journal.
It is March 18 when the Russians enter the village and search his house.
When they realize that one of his two brothers had served in the Ukrainian army, hell begins.
The three are tortured with a club and then led blindfolded to a shed outside the village.
After three days of imprisonment they are taken to the slaughterhouse.
Mykola is forced, along with his two brothers, to kneel at the edge of a newly dug pit near a wheat field in northern Ukraine.
The first to fall is the younger brother, Yevgen.
then it's up to the second Dymytro.
The last bullet is reserved for Mykola, who is hit near the right ear.
But the bullet manages to find a way out over the right side of his mouth and he survives.
The Russians do not notice and throw him in the ditch, in what should have been his grave.
Lying between the bodies of his two brothers, Mykola realizes that he is "alive".
He says the bullet only grazed his upper jaw without causing serious damage.
Then the race for life and the journey home dodging Russian forces along the way.
An emotional and tragic tale.
One of the many stories that Ukrainian prosecutors are trying to reconstruct in full against Russian forces that are accused of committing war crimes, including summary executions, torture and rape.
Ukraine's attorney general last month filed war crimes charges against 10 Russian soldiers accused of taking civilians hostage and massacring them in the suburb of Bucha, where evidence of mass killings emerged.
The first war crimes trial involved a Russian soldier accused of killing a 62-year-old unarmed civilian.
Moscow denied committing war crimes or targeting civilians during the operation in Ukraine.
But Mykola's words leave little doubt.
