In the ruins of Irpin, Ukraine begins a slow, painful search for justice

There are two discarded wooden crosses — one green, one yellow — lying beside a pair of empty graves tucked behind a meagre series of beige apartment buildings in Irpin, a leafy, battered suburban community at the edge of Kyiv.

They're two in a series of hasty resting places on the property that were dug by residents to memorialize loved ones killed under relentless Russian shellfire in Irpin — the high-water mark of a brutal advance at the very beginning of March.

On Tuesday, Natalia, 54, sat alone on a wooden bench outside one of the buildings and stared vacantly at the greening yard, occasionally stealing a glance at the empty graves where her neighbours had been buried. Her son's grave — on another part of the property — was also empty.

Across the street, Ukraine's visiting chief war crimes prosecutor, Iryna Venediktova, was promising to seek justice for the innocent people slaughtered under what trained military eyes say was "cruel" indiscriminate fire.

"I remember every day how many of our Ukrainians kids were killed. I see it every day. I remember every day about what is going on," Venediktova said. "If we speak about [the] crimes of [the Russian] Federation, we all know who started this war, and this person is Vladimir Putin."

Natalia's neighbours, meanwhile, were wondering whether the justice Venediktova promised will ever be delivered. They stood around a blackened outdoor stove — a converted barrel they use for cooking because area buildings lack access to natural gas, electricity and, in some cases, water.

Many of them told CBC News that Russian troops and their leaders need to be held accountable.

Natalia would only give CBC News her first name and did not identify her son. Her neighbours corroborated her heartbreaking story.

She spoke very little except to say her 32-year-old son was caught in an artillery barrage on March 6, 2022 — the same day the world was gripped by the horrific deaths of Tetiana Perebyinis and her two children. 

Their fate was captured by a photographer as they tried to dash to safety.

Natalia said her son was also running for his life, trying to make it home. A member of the local Territorial Defence Battalion, he was killed less than 50 meters from his mother's apartment.

"He was the very first person who died in this part of town," Natalia said through an interpreter.

Others followed. 

Several of her neighbours died in the ensuing days and the constant shelling made it impossible to collect all the dead, she added.

Neighbours eventually buried her son. He stayed in a shallow grave behind a nearby garage until the Russians retreated in late March and local Ukrainian authorities were able to exhume the corpses and give them a proper burial in the Irpin cemetery.

On Tuesday, Oleksandr Markushyn, the mayor and the commander of the local territorial battalion, described the horror and heroism experienced by his city in a conversation with Germany's conservative opposition leader, Christian Democratic Party (CDU) chairman Friedrich Merz, who paid a visit to the Ukrainian capital.

'Many of you may die today'

"There was very heavy fighting," said Markushyn, adding his territorial reservists managed to destroy 20 out of 60 Russian armoured vehicles when the Ukrainian counterattack came in late March.

"I told my boys, 'Many of you may die today, but our only job today today is to fight for the city and save the city.'"

Markushyn has said up to 300 civilians and 50 defenders were killed in Irpin during the occupation.

The Ukrainian Army may have driven out the Russians, but for Larisa, a happy-faced convenience store owner whose shop services the apartment block, divine protection was also at work.

She showed CBC News an icon of the Virgin Mary on the living room wall of her closet-sized apartment. The windows were blown out by Russian shellfire and shrapnel gouges marked the wall. But the icon survived, unscathed.

It was, for her, a sign.

"The Virgin Mary protected us and saved our apartment building," Larisa said.

She said she was happy to see the backs of the Russian troops she accused of looting and ransacking her business.

"They used my shop as a toilet," Larisa said as she poked through the ruins of her office with a flashlight.

She too wants justice for what she and her neighbours have suffered.

So what would justice look like for these people?

"I think it's a challenge for all of us," Venediktova said, standing in front of Irpin's ruined cultural centre. Its roof had been blown away by artillery fire and its walkway had been torn up by tank treads.

The building had been deliberately targeted, residents said, because the Russians were trying to erase the city's Ukrainian heritage.

Venediktova said the question of justice is not an "emotional one" at the moment because, for the time being, police and prosecutors have a job to do investigating war crimes.

Just up the road from Irpin on Tuesday, Ukrainian authorities were still pulling bodies out of mass graves and trying to identify them.

"Now, we should do our professional job," Venediktova said.