What is this pit? I asked the Russians. They said: 'This is a cemetery for you'

When the air felt fresh, Tetiana Oleksijenko used to spend time in her garden.

Now she trembles with the sight.

are the apple, cherry and apricot trees that feed their family. They were all torn torn by the Russian soldiers who had dug a ditch who was supposed to serve as a grave.

Ms. Oleksiienko, 69, hid with her daughter and grandchildren in the basement of a neighbor, when Russian troops invaded Andrivka, a small village 70 km outside of Kiev.

Only when hunger forced her to go to the surface returned to her home country to find the soldiers.

"They started digging with shovels and then drove with a tractor," said Ms. Oleksijenko to the "telegraph" and broke out in tears.

"I asked: 'What kind of pit is that in my garden?' And the soldiers said: 'This is a cemetery.' You said that: 'This is a cemetery for you.'"

The soldiers informed Ms. Oleskiienko that they were ordered to make the grave that was about 7 feet deep.

"You just didn't manage to fill it because the Ukrainians have recaptured control," she said.

Western officials said on Thursday that the Russian armed forces had retired from Kiev, which had been repelled by violent resistance.

Only the hasty withdrawal of the soldiers has prevented them from hiding evidence of war crimes.

in Mariupol said the city's mayor on Thursday that Russian troops would burn the dead in mobile crematoriums to delete evidence for their massacres. Mass graves, similar to those in the back yard of Ms. Oleskijenko, were found throughout the Kiev region, while corpses are still scattered on the streets.

Vitalii Cherkasov, a member of the village council of Andrivka, said that women and children were raped by Russian soldiers during the crew that ended a week ago.

Many were taken as "human protective shields" and recorded in school next to Ms. Oleksijenko's house.

The current number of fatalities of 45, said Cherkasov, would certainly rise as soon as the locals uncover those who remained under the ruins of their destroyed houses. The severe degradation of the village means that this will be a slower and painful process.

Almost every building in Andrivka wears traces of the war. The majority are now only piles of bricks and wood. Those who still stand are littered with bullet holes, the windows splintered and doors from the frame.

Olha, who raised her children here, told The Telegraph that she was determined to rebuild the house in which they grew up. Your car, which is still parked in your garage, is now a burned -out shell.

"I will not go," insisted Olha and wore a framed picture of her son who is still fighting in the army. "I will rebuild our house. If we all evacuate, we have nothing more."

It will take years to achieve that, she knows. But the crocuses and snowdrops that excellent between the glass and brick shards give their hope that it can start again.

in the nearby Lypivka, which was also under the Russian occupation until the end of March, a grave with the corpses of six Ukrainian fighters was opened on Wednesday.

The men had temporarily buried in Lypivka's Zürbittekirche of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine after villagers had taken on their own to rescue the fighter from the nearby fields.

a woman, Tonya, had suggested her husband to contact the Russian soldiers and ask them if they would consider keeping their fire while the villagers collect corpses. To his surprise, the Russians agreed.

VITALY SERGIE, the father of a 24-year-old Ukrainian who had fallen in combat on March 11, stood wake when the corpses were carefully pulled out of the earth.

he wiped the tears away when his son, who was still wearing his military uniform, was placed in a white corpse bag that was lined up next to his fallen comrades.

Valerii Tymchuk, not far from the church, had just returned home for the first time in over a month after he had fled the Russian advance.

he found a place of destruction. Russian soldiers had stolen his gold, thrown his wife's underwear drawer on the floor, burned a hole in his mattress and covered the floor with alcohol bottles and cigarettes.

Outside, his garage goal was sprayed with graffiti in Russian.

The first line was: "Boom." The second line was: "Sorry. We didn't want", followed by a third line that shows that the Ukrainians should be punished because they were "banderists" - an allusion to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement.

"You pretend we deserve it," said Tymchuk. "I can't understand it."

black swastikas had been sprayed on fences nearby, presumably from Russian soldiers who had received the order to "denounce" Ukraine.