Russian troops massacred Ukrainian civilian convoy after waving them through checkpoint

Russian troops reportedly fired on a convoy of civilians fleeing a village near Kyiv despite waving them through a checkpoint and promising they would be safe, the Telegraph has learned.

The alleged incident happened last month between the villages of Lipivka and Korolivka and led to the deaths of at least two people, but likely many more, according to an eyewitness.

It involved residents from the town of Makariv, a recently liberated town about 37 miles west of Kyiv, where authorities on Saturday said they had found the bodies of 132 tortured people executed by Russian troops, many in mass graves.

Oleksii Sychevskyi and his family were among those living under Russian occupation there for two weeks in early March.

"It was a nightmare. We were under constant psychological pressure,” Mr Sychevskyi told The Telegraph. “They killed my dog and were cruel to my family, threatening us with weapons. There were different nationalities in the Russian forces but the Chechens were the cruellest and most aggressive.”

He claimed one woman in the town, which is not far from Bucha and Borodyanka, was raped and then shot. The Telegraph was not able to independently verify his claims, but there have been a number of verified reports of sexual assault by Russian troops in Ukraine.

On March 10, they were finally told they could leave. The 34-year-old engineer gathered his elderly parents, his wife Olga and eight-year-old son Mykola and bundled them all into his Honda Accord to try to reach the Ukrainian frontline in Nalyvaikivka.

After two days of trying and failing on their own, on March 12, the Sychevskyis joined a convoy of 13 civilian cars carrying men, women and children setting off from the nearby hamlet of Lipivka. Oleksii and his mother, 61-year-old Tetitana, sat in the front, while his father, 64-year-old Oleksandr, sat in the back with the others.

They tried several different Russian checkpoints without success. Eventually, they were given permission to pass and make their way to Ukrainian-held Nalyvaikivka.

“The soldiers said we could go through but we had to drive slowly, no more than 20 km/h, and stay close together,” said Mr Sychevskyi.

They tied white sheets to their car to make it clear they were fleeing civilians, just in case.

But not long after being waved through, the entire convoy came under fire from Russian troops positioned just 100-150m from the road.

It was instant chaos. “The first shots hit the car in front of us, wounding the driver, so the convoy came to a stop,” Mr Sychevskyi told The Telegraph. “The earth around the car was flying up so I think they were using a machine gun or some kind of large gun.

“Then a shot came through the passenger door of our car, went right through and out of my door. Then there was the sound of another shot, and blood, tissue and pieces of bone hit the windscreen. My wife screamed that my father’s head had gone. It felt like something had kicked my seat. Looking back I saw that my wife had slumped over.”

His father Oleksandr was dead. His son Mykola lay on the floor of the car with flesh wounds on his back.

“It all happened in a few seconds, very fast,” said Mr Sychevskyi. “I saw the car in front of us had started moving again so I hit the gas. There were a lot of shots. Looking in the mirrors I saw the cars behind me on fire and people crawling away from them, trying to find cover. I don’t know what happened to them.”

The next few hours were a blur. Mr Sychevskyi kept driving and soon made it to the safety of Ukrainian lines to seek help.

His mother and son were immediately taken to hospital by ambulance while medics set about trying to resuscitate his wife, whose lungs and heart had been punctured.

“They were trying to save her but after a while she had no pulse, she stopped breathing and her heart stopped,” he said. “I later got a police report that said she had no chance of survival given the nature of her wounds.”

How many died in total in the ambush remains unclear. A video of the scene of the attack taken since the Russians left shows five shot-up and burnt out cars and a minibus. What happened to those who were inside is still unknown. The Ukrainian police have launched an investigation.

The attack joins a long list of alleged atrocities committed by Russian troops during their occupation of northern Ukraine in March, including in the towns of Bucha and Borodyanka. Hundreds of civilians have been found executed or shot dead while trying to flee.

For Mr Sychevskyi, the biggest question is why the Russians would open fire after letting them through.

“It was clear the cars were civilian, with children in them, we had white flags on them,” he said. “There was no chance that they didn’t know that we were civilians.

Mr Sychevskyi and his mother and son are now with his brother in Germany, whose employer Bayer paid for them to come and join him. Their life is changed forever.

“I built my house from the basement to the roof, and I worked hard to have a car,” he said. “But in one day the Russians took my father, my wife, my house and my car; they took everything.”