Ukrainian town has been devastated by the occupation’s consequences

Anton Ischenko was kidnapped by Russians the day after his 23rd birthday, and dragged away from his house in Andriivka, west of Kyiv, under duress.

After the Russian troops were driven out, his death was discovered a month later by his family. They had to identify him by his clothes since he was so terribly damaged.

As Russian military withdraw into eastern Ukraine, horrors are revealed in the places they abandoned.

Andriivka, 60 kilometres from the capital, had a population of about 1,000 people. At least 40 of them died as a result of the attack.

“He was a really nice youngster, extremely bright – he could recite poetry,” Anton’s grandmother, Tetiana, recalls as she sits outside the family home. Her weary face crumples at the corners.

“Maybe if he had gone to fight somewhere else, he would have returned here in one piece,” she says, struggling to speak through her tears. “When my husband told the Russians, ‘Take me instead,’ they pointed a machine gun at him and said, ‘Go home – or we will take you both.'”

Battles and a month-long occupation have ruined Andriivka, which is on the path up to the Belarus border. Buildings are ripped apart, leaving rubble and mangled metal in their wake.

The gravel road where the tanks were blown up is littered with craters. Artillery shells are strewn among the carcasses of chickens and rabbits.

Both ends of the town are littered with burned-out armoured vehicles. It’s a scene of complete destruction.

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