The Kurilivka caravan of death: a survivor recounts the massacre of 26 civilians fleeing the war in Ukraine

"Tratatatata".

At the rhythm of onomatopoeia, Olha Tereshenko tells how what was to be a flight of Ukrainian civilians towards a safe zone ended on September 25 on a road strewn with the dead, some burned.

Among the corpses were those of her husband and her only child.

She claims that Dmitri, a local businessman allegedly with a hand in the Russian occupiers, organized a caravan to evacuate desperate people from the front line.

Each interested party paid him 6,000 grivnas (about 155 euros), a considerable amount of money in a country where at the beginning of the Russian invasion the average salary was 514 euros a month.

But a hail of bullets and grenades surprised the escaping seven vehicles with 48 people on board from Kupiansk-Uzlovi, in the northwestern Kharkov region.

The attack ended the lives of 26 of them, of which 13 were minors, according to data from the Prosecutor's Office.

Investigations by local authorities, carried out together with specialists from France, hold Russian troops responsible for one of the worst massacres of civilians in this war.

The organizer of the expedition was found dead in his house days later.

Since the Russian invasion began, on February 24, until November 28, 6,655 civilians have lost their lives, of which 419 are minors, according to the UN count.

At 9:00 a.m. on that September 25, the attack began, Tereshenko recounted during a conversation with EL PAÍS in the city of Kharkov.

This woman is the only survivor of the five occupants of the car that the group opened.

“First it was heard from afar.

Immediately, the driver stopped the entire caravan and said that we had to get down quickly, ”she recalls.

Hell had broken loose on a road in the town of Kurilivka that runs alongside the train tracks.

The vehicles had just set off on their way, supposedly to freedom, from neighboring Kupiansk-Uzlovi.

“I saw my husband, with a hole in his arm, hugging me.

Andrei, the driver, was at the wheel covered in blood.

Then the car caught fire and something, like an explosion, threw me out.

I couldn't even get my son out.

It all happened very quickly, in half a minute.”

Olha Tereshenko, 38, watched as her husband, Igor, 42, and her only son, Matvey, five, were left in the flames.

All three were in the back seat.

An older woman was traveling in the co-pilot's.

“Only the skeleton remained of the grandmother.

Some parts of the bodies remained from my family.

In the morgue they only showed me the chain that my husband was wearing around his neck ”, details the woman while she shows it on her mobile phone screen.

More than two months later, she is still waiting for her remains to be delivered to her so she can bury them.

But they tell him that the investigations and identifications through DNA are still open.

Igor's mother, who lives in Poland, has traveled to Kharkov to provide her sample.

They had decided to try to reach that country to seek refuge.

As soon as he can say goodbye to them, Tereshenko wants to put land in the middle and start a new life away from Ukraine.

After more than six months of Russian occupation, the eastern Kharkiv region had become a battlefield.

From the first days of September, the local troops pushed in a hitherto unprecedented counteroffensive to push back the Kremlin Army.

Kupiansk-Uzlovi, from where the attacked civilian expedition left, was part of that so-called gray area that is not fully controlled by any of the opposing sides.

It was the daily scene of attacks, skirmishes and shelling around the Oskil River, a strategic place at the gates of the Lugansk region, a Russian stronghold.

The Tereshenko family home was hit by a missile on September 22, Olha explains.

They then decided to seek accommodation in the basement of some neighbors across the street.

But there, too, the bombings arrived the next day.

At that moment, Igor decided that it was time to leave, that they could not stay in Kupiansk-Uzlovi any longer.

“In the market he met a boy who said that he was organizing a caravan that would leave on the 24th. The price was 6,000 UAH per person and he took half of the money as an advance.

Igor came home and told me to prepare things, papers, jewelry and money.

Olha Tereshenko, the survivor who lost her husband and son and who has told EL PAÍS how the attack against a caravan of civilian cars was like.Luis de Vega

When the caravan arrived at Kurilivka, it ran into an armored car and two armed Russian soldiers who forced them to turn around.

“The entire trip was already paid for and, upon returning, the boy told us that he did not return the money and that we would try again on the 25th,” explains the woman in a cafeteria in the city of Kharkov.

Her story attracts the discreet attention of the saleswoman and other customers, who freeze when they hear it.

“On the 25th we left Kupiansk-Uzlovi at 8.00 and took the same route.

(…) When we arrived at the place where the Russians forced us to turn around the day before, this time the armored car was not there and the Russians were in the bushes.

They waved for us to move on.

And we continue.

On the way we prayed with Matvey”, she recalls as she crosses herself with one hand and holds the coffee with the other.

The images next to the train tracks of the vehicles riddled with bullets and, in some cases, burned with the bodies of those who traveled in them, took five days to come to light.

The participation of forensics and ballistics specialists from the French Gendarmerie, who examined 16 of the bodies and two of the vehicles, has been instrumental in helping to conclude that the weapons and ammunition used in the attack were Russian, says Dmitro Chubenko, spokesman Kharkiv Prosecutor's Office.

The French, he adds, not only provided technology such as mobile X-ray machines that they did not have, but they are also helping through DNA samples to identify the bodies of the corpses that ended up charred after burning some of the vehicles.

The attackers used “high-explosive shells of 30 and 45 millimeters” whose remains were found in the cars, Oleksandr Filchakov, chief prosecutor of Kharkov, explained in an appearance on October 20.

Thanks to the French, Filchakov added, they have concluded that weapons mounted on heavy military vehicles type BMP-2 and BRM 3K Rys, used by the Russian army, as well as weapons to launch grenades of the VOG-17 and VOG-25 type, were used.

Only four of the 17 children who were in the caravan were saved from the attack.

Among the 13 adults who died was a pregnant woman.

The attackers fired even at those escaping into the bushes.

Olha says that, stunned by the explosions and already out of the car, the shots did not stop.

“Others who had escaped also yelled at me to get down on the ground and drag myself towards the trees.

I saw with my own eyes that the…I'm not going to swear…shot a seven or eight year old boy.”

A dozen adults managed to meet, although she adds, "a woman did not want to leave her husband, she shouted that she was not going to leave without him, that she preferred to die with him."

They then began their march on foot in the direction of Kupiansk-Uzlovi.

“The Russians were chasing us in the armored car.

We hid between trees.

They knew that some of us had survived and they wanted to finish us off."

On October 12, the body of a 75-year-old woman was found some 200 meters from the scene of the attack and, on the 17th, the body of a 19-year-old boy who had managed to walk wounded for a kilometer and a half before collapsing forever. , informed the regional authorities.

Olha Tereshenko, 38, shows a photo of her five-year-old son Matvey, who was killed in the Luis de Vega attack

“We did not know that we were going to go through an area controlled by the Russians,” says Olha Tereshenko.

It refers to the route chosen to avoid the most sensitive area of ​​the confrontations, since the convoy headed towards territory under the control of the invading military to, later, try to enter Russia and undertake a long detour until reaching Ukraine again.

It is the path that hundreds of citizens had chosen before to flee from occupied towns, according to some testimonies collected by EL PAÍS in recent months.

They were not surprised either, since, apparently, the organizer had contacts.

Olha, who now lives with relatives, is able to recall with a laugh how she met Igor when they were both assigned to the same department of the railway company.

They fell in love, moved in together and, with Matvey already on the way, they got married in 2016. A photo of father and son playing at home illustrates on his phone the memory of a time when he is well aware that they will never return.

She wants to go away and has heard that Ireland has a good social care program for cases like hers.

“I'm not strong, it just seems so.

What you see is a mask, ”she replies with a hint of tears in her eyes.

“This is very hard.

I don't have anything.

Everything brings back memories.

A week ago I was at home and I cried a lot.”

In Kupiansk-Uzlovi, the tragedy of the attack on the caravan continues to haunt the residents.

The Ukrainian Army has advanced a few kilometers and today it is an area liberated from the occupation, although the soundtrack of the fighting in the background accompanies the few neighbors seen on the street.

There, in his house, Dmitri's body was found a few days after he organized the failed attempt to evacuate the neighbors.

Sources close to the district authorities acknowledge that there is not excessive interest in delving into the reasons for what they themselves believe to have been a murder as revenge.

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