Friends, family mourn the victim of Bucha, who became a symbol of the year-long war in Ukraine – #Friends #family #mourn #victim #Bucha #symbol #yearlong #war #Ukraine

ANGLE, Ukraine/VINLUS, Feb 22 (Reuters) – Brightly painted fingernails were what revealed the body’s identity.

Irina Filkina, who was killed in the first days of the war in Ukraine, was 52 years old.

Nearly four weeks after his presumed death on March 5, journalists after the occupying Russian forces fled Kyiv they gained access to the nearby city of Bucha.

Filkina was among the dead left unattended on the side of the road, and photographs of her upturned hand in mud with bright red nails went viral and became a powerful symbol of civilian suffering.

A year after the large-scale occupation, family and friends parted ways, their lives turned upside down by the conflict. But they are united in grief for a woman whose death still seems meaningless to them.

“The world ended for me on March 5,” Filkina’s older sister Svitlana Safonova said as she sobbed by her grave in a cemetery outside Bucha.

A 60-year-old woman who brought 12 pink roses with her in the cold, snowy weather said, “It’s different when you die and are buried after a long illness. “It’s another thing when someone is killed unexpectedly, for no reason,” he said. day in early February.

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Referring to the serendipitous discovery of Filkina’s body and identity, he said, “She has a resting place, a place to come and visit when she doesn’t even know how to find her to bury her.” .

Safonova regularly joins the plot at one of the five new cemeteries that residents say have sprung up in the past 12 months to house the war dead.

Bucha is a prize city of the Russians Kyiv lay in its path, and although they eventually retreated, the level of destruction and loss of life now suggests that it is synonymous with the brutality of the invading forces.

The mayor of Bucha has more than 400 civilians there Russia said that they were killed by their forces, and some of them were shot with their hands tied behind their backs.

Ukraine and Western Russia in Bucha military accusing him of crimes, the Kremlin denies this claim. He claimed that the images of corpses on the streets of Buchan were fake and characterized the war as a special operation to demilitarize and “azify” Ukraine.

‘THE DAY GOD DIED’

According to Filkina’s relatives, she was shot by Russian soldiers while cycling through Bucha on her way home. Reuters could not independently verify this account.

He died on Jablunska Street, on the southern outskirts of Buča, a long, now infamous road where much of the search for evidence of war crimes has been concentrated.

Only in early April, media images of his remains and those of other dead civilians appeared on websites and social began to spread in the media, and it was there that the beautician who did Filkina’s nails recognized who she was.

Anastasiya Subacheva, a former Bucha resident who moved to Vilnius, found a new home and worked in a beauty salon, recalled: “It was an ordinary evening.

“I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and saw a post with pictures of Irina and a picture of her hand,” he told Reuters in the Lithuanian capital earlier this month. I stopped breathing.”

Someone made a connection between the photo of the body and a photo Subacheva shared earlier, showing a smiling Filkina with freshly painted nails. Four were red, and the fifth had a small purple heart bordered with silver lacquer.

“I went through our messages and compared the pictures I took with him to that picture. And he was. I started screaming… I cried on my mother’s shoulder, I felt so empty and painful.”

Safonova discovered what was happening from her nieces, Filkina’s daughters; Photos released on April 2, including by Reuters, helped the family find the body. The girls created a charity fund called “Mama Ira” to raise money for children suffering from violence in Bucha.

Subacheva was famous when he died Kyiv How to become a make-up artist of Filkina, a heating operator in a shopping mall education he remembered that he had received and took several lessons with him in February.

The two became close, and Subacheva said her older friend inspired her to live life to the fullest.

“I want to smile when I think of him,” she said.

When asked what Feb. 24, the first anniversary of the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion, meant to her, Subacheva took a moment to think before answering.

“This is the day God died… This was the day my life was stolen. February 24 is the day when the lives of all Ukrainians were taken, but we are trying to get it back.”

Added by Yiming Woo in Buchada report; Edited by Mike Collett-White and Alexandra Hudson

Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

2023-02-22 12:33:52
Source – reuters

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