April 6, 2022, 9:06 PM +00By Richard Engel, Marc Smith and Yuliya Talmazan
BUCHA, Ukraine — It was cold when Russian soldiers came for Oleg Abramov, his wife said, so they killed him after taking his sweater.
A few days after the invasion of Ukraine, Iryna Abramova, 42, was with Oleg and her father in their house in the town of Bucha near the capital, Kyiv, when the soldiers threw a grenade through a window, she said. Still wearing slippers, the three ran into the cold to escape the fire.
“They made him take his sweater off, then they put him on his knees and shot him in the head,” Abramova told NBC News as she stood in front of her home in the now-devastated town. “Half of his head was gone. I went on the street and blood was still pumping from his head.”
NBC News could not independently confirm Abram ova's account, but it echoes similar stories from survivors and eyewitnesses in Bucha who told NBC News of arbitrary killings, intimidation, and looting at the hands of the Russian soldiers.
“I started to shout, ‘Kill me, too,’” Abramova said as she clasped her hands to her chest.
Because of sniper fire and Russian troops patrolling the streets, she was unable to collect Oleg's body for a month, she said, but it has now been taken away by Ukrainian authorities. She is hoping to retrieve it for a proper burial.
Oleg’s blood still stained the pavement outside his home as his
Abramova showed photographs of her husband on her phone. Abramov is wearing an orange construction hat and yellow vest and holding a cat in one of them.
“He really liked cats,” Abramova said, swiping through the photos.
Her husband was a welder and they lived a good life, Ambr mova said. He never served in the military or held a gun.
She said she thinks the Russian troops killed her husband to scare others in Bucha into submission.
Ukrainian forces regained control of the town on April 2, but Russian soldiers occupied Bucha for five weeks and destroyed much of it. Driving around the town, NBC News saw damaged or destroyed houses, mangled cars, and fresh graves in people's backyards.
Images that emerged from the town’s streets and homes after the Russian retreat has shocked the world. Some photographs show bodies in civilian clothes lying on blood-stained pavements, some with their hands tied behind their backs.
Ukrainian officials estimate hundreds of civilians were killed in Bucha, and they accuse Moscow of committing war crimes there. Russia denies it targeted the town’s civilians, saying Ukraine staged the alleged atrocities to discredit its army.