LOS ANGELES (KNX) — The war in Ukraine impacts real people in the country, trying not just to survive but make sense of what is happening around them. Anton, a historian and photographer who ventured to Bucha on Monday, joined KNX In Depth to share what he saw and how the atrocities done by Russia’s war in Ukraine have affected the country.
“I went not only to Bucha, [but several other cities]...the closer you get to the frontline the more destruction you see…destroyed high-rise buildings or private houses…the enemy's tanks,” he said, pausing to translate his thoughts from his native language to English. “I didn’t see the people [in Bucha], they removed all the bodies. I saw only blood, destroyed streets and exploded buildings.”
Anton said photography is a second life path for him, as he first studied history and worked as a history teacher. Never once though, he said, did he imagine that he would be living through such a violent part of what one day, others will study.
“What’s interesting for a historian is horrible for the person living through it,” he said. “I don’t know, I have…[at] this point in my life, I think life is separated now from ‘before I saw Bucha’ and ‘after’ it. Nothing can change anything from now on.”
While visiting several destroyed cities this week, Anton saw and photographed destroyed buildings, unexploded Russian rockets, bloodied streets and haunting images of dogs lying in the streets, starved or shot to death for seemingly no reason, he said.
None of it is far from his home in Kyiv, or his parents’ home right by Bucha. He said they could hear what was going on from their home as it happened.
Anton said he chose to venture out of his home to photograph the cities because he had to see the destruction with his own eyes.
“When I saw the first pictures from there I got very emotional, the tears started…I wanted to see it with my own eyes and I wanted to [photograph] anything that I could,” he said, saying that when he finally did, he could not hide how it made him feel.
Before the war, there were around 64,000 people living in Bucha, Anton told KNX. Those he saw when he got there were about 3,700. And despite what they’ve lived through, Anton said the people still living in Bucha remain kind and generous.
“I had an opportunity to talk to some people…they said that they would give us the interviews only after we ate some borscht soup,” he said, laughing. “They were very friendly. They were smiling and they were happy to see us.”
In one conversation that he's not sure if he believes, a man told Anton his wife traded a starving Russian soldier a sack of potatoes for an assault rifle - that's how strong his hunger was after reaching a point where so many of the stores had been emptied.
“They were looting everything. The nearest markets were looted, the nearest banks were looted. I saw the broken windows,” Anton said. “The neighbors that left Bucha said that the Russian military entered the houses and looted them too.”
Even with more than five weeks of war under its belt, and more violence than some people can fathom, Anton said he believes there is still more to come.
“ We still have Mariupol…I think that in those cities…things can get worse than this.”
Anton’s discussion with KNX comes at a time when more than 5,000 people have been reported killed in the city of Mariupol, and the country of Ukraine braces for a hit on its east side, according to The Associated Press.
“I think we have not seen the worst yet,” the 31-year-old said, referring to the killings and torture stories coming out of Bucha this week.
Wednesday, the U.S. House passed legislation calling on the federal government to report evidence of war crimes by Russians during the invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has increasingly, AP reported, accused Russia of trying to hide the evidence of alleged war crimes.
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