View from Bucha: ‘Peace' for Russia is when there are no more Ukrainians left alive

Euronews

11-03-2025

Exactly three years ago, in early March 2022, satellite images showed the first mass grave of civilians in Bucha, a town in the Kyiv region. It was on the grounds of the Church of St Andrew, where now there is the Wall of Remembrance for the civilians killed by Russian troops during the occupation.
ADVERTISEMENT
The priest at the Church of St Andrew, Father Andriy Halavin, is still in Bucha, three years since Russia started its brutal invasion of Ukraine.
The region of Kyiv and its towns like Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin were the first to face — and stop — Russian forces in their all-out war in early 2022.
Showing Bucha's Wall of Remembrance, Father Andriy says it will be replaced with a permanent memorial.
He told Euronews the wall, replete with metal plaques for each person killed in the town after Russian troops occupied it, should be a place where people could come with their children, for it to be also a place of strength.
'The liberation of our country started with the liberation of Bucha," Father Andriy explained.
A woman attends a memorial ceremony for killed civilians to mark the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Bucha, Ukraine, Feb. 24, 2025.
AP Photo
Painful memories of 2022
Father Andriy knows every corner of Bucha and probably every resident. As he shows the memorial, he points at the house facing the church.
The family who lived there escaped Russia's war once in the past, when Moscow forces invaded the Donbas. But the Kremlin and its war chased them all the way to Bucha.
On 5 March — several days into the occupation — the family tried to evacuate.
"Russian forces opened fire at them, at the entire family, just like this, in the streets of Bucha," Father Andriy recalled.
Only the father survived, having lost his leg. The names of the two children — nine and four years old — and their mother are engraved on the memorial at the church, right across the road from their house. The man still lives in Bucha, Father Andriy says.
He knows the names and stories of almost everyone whose name is on the memorial. Many families got killed while trying to evacuate, he explained.
'We have surveillance cameras at the exit from Bucha, the roundabout towards Hostomel and Irpin. On the second day of the full-scale war, the Russians fired at any moving car, and many people died there," he said.
Cemetery worker exhume the corpse of a civilian killed in Bucha from a mass grave, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 13, 2022.
AP Photo
Many civilians also got killed while staying in Bucha under occupation. 'When Russians came into people's houses, they would open fire at anyone inside,' Father Andriy explained.
Residents had no choice but to leave and try to find food, water and medicine. Russian soldiers told the locals to put white bands on their arms, and they'd be safe.
'A father and a son went to a city hall to get medicine, both got shot. The son, thirteen years old, survived because the bullet got through the hood of his vest. He stayed on the ground, next to the body of his father, pretending to be dead until it was safer to run home,' the priest recalled.
ADVERTISEMENT
Bucha, three years later
The Vokzal'na Street in Bucha, where a column of Russian armored vehicles was destroyed by a Ukrainian army, famous for a photo that shocked the world, look totally different now.
There's no sign of battle and almost no sign of destroyed houses. The street has been rebuilt, and it now looks just like any other road in any quiet European town with modern cookie-cutter houses and tidy fences.
Cafes and shops have been rebuilt and reopened, and people are back. But although one can spot the scars of Russian brutality only on some residential buildings in the facades pockmarked by shrapnel from the shelling signs on the facade — just like on the Church of St Andrew — the emotional wounds have not healed.
There are 509 names of the civilians killed during the occupation of Bucha on the Wall of Remembrance, Father Andriy says, adding, "509 civilians died here not as a result of combat, but during the occupation. And we have not yet talked about rape, robbery, abduction of children."
ADVERTISEMENT
Soldiers walk amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, April 3, 2022.
AP Photo
Talks with Russia: View from Bucha
Among many statements regarding Ukraine by US President Donald Trump, there was one that really stood out, crossing red lines for the Ukrainians: when Trump said that Ukraine should not have started the war.
Father Andriy says for the Russians, negotiations are not a way to find peace, but "a way to achieve what you cannot achieve with weapons."
'The Russians wanted to take Kyiv in three days, and they failed. With the help of Trump, negotiations, and so on, they are trying to occupy Ukraine in some other way," he explained.
"This is a matter of justice. What is worrying is that when they say 'negotiations', no one talks about crimes. No one talks about responsibility.'
ADVERTISEMENT
He says he fully understands why those on the outside might be unable to comprehend it, explaining it as simple as "human psychology".
'When planes were already flying over our heads, Russian helicopters were flying overhead and everything was blasting away and exploding, you understand that there is war," Father Andriy said.
"But mentally it was it impossible to admit that it can be real in the 21st century.'
Many people in Europe feel the same way, that the war is impossible, Father Andriy points out.
ADVERTISEMENT
"They are not ready to accept it. They have a calm, comfortable life," he said, adding that now Europeans are in a state where they are beginning to understand, but they are not ready to give up what they had or accept things as they are.
'If this continues, there is a danger that they will have to learn Russian. Because if Ukraine falls, Poland and the Baltic states will be next.'
He believes that when it comes to any talks with Russia, the crucial issue is the understanding of what "peace" essentially means, which is very different in Ukraine and Russia. Even if the conditions and terms of the agreement are good, the question is, will this make Russia's Vladimir Putin and his forces stop shooting?
'Ukrainians understand the word 'peace' when they are not killed, when there is justice, when criminals are held accountable for their crimes - this is peace," Father Andriy said.
ADVERTISEMENT
"From Putin's point of view, I think, 'peace' is something like when they don't shoot anymore because there are no more survivors left on our side, no one alive, only territories left," he concluded.