Indirect account, by survivors from Bucha

"There was 70 of the armoured vehicles, like tanks, and Russian soldiers walked alongside," he said. "It took about 40 minutes for them to pass our house. I watched and counted. And then the Ukrainians launched their shells at the Russians."

The first took out Savenko's shed in his large garden at the back. It was the first of many. The horribly exposed armoured vehicles tried to turn around, in panic, as the next more accurate wave of shells rained down upon them.

Thirty minutes of devastation ensued. Russian bodies were strewn across the road, hot metal flew through the air, smashing every window, enveloping the trees in fire, and turning the burning vehicles white hot.

Across Savenko's 30-metre hedge alone, nine devastated armoured vehicles were left burnt out, filling the air with the acrid smell of burning oil and metal.
Those Russians that could escape did. But an hour after the Ukrainian assault, the Russians came back to retrieve their dead - and to entrench themselves in Vokzal'na's gardens and what was left of its buildings, establishing points from which to send their artillery fire at the Ukrainian defenders. It would be a long and cruel occupation.

Personally, my first memory of contemporary war was the My Lai massacre (I was seven years old, and conceived a passionate hatred of war). This is Russia's My Lai moment.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}