At the beginning of October, a mourning party in the eastern Ukrainian village of Hrosa was killed in a Russian rocket attack – 59 people died. The public prosecutor’s office is now investigating: Did collaborators make the attack possible?
The crosses on the many fresh graves of the small cemetery on the outskirts of Hrosa in the Kharkiv region all have the same date of death: October 5, 2023. On that day, a Russian missile wiped out 59 lives with deadly precision.
People had previously gathered at the cemetery to bury Andryi Kosyr. The fallen soldier who was reburied in his hometown of Hrosa on this autumn day.
funeral company extinguished
His grave is covered with colorful artificial flowers and wreaths, brought by people who were themselves killed shortly afterwards. The impact site is a few hundred meters away. The small café where the funeral party gathered for a meal that 59 people were not expected to survive.
Villager Ivan Chodak has deep circles under his eyes and would like to drive everyone to hell – but then he agrees to have a conversation. “We are at the end,” said the 66-year-old. The fact that he went straight home after the funeral saved his life. “I knew everyone. Eight of my relatives were also killed.” All the people who were important to Hrosa are dead. There are only four people left on his street.
The café where the funeral party gathered to eat was completely destroyed in the rocket attack.
Public prosecutor suspects Ukrainians of collaboration
As if this trauma wasn’t enough, another suspicion has crept into the village: suspicion of treason. Two Ukrainian brothers from the area are said to have meticulously scouted out the funeral of presumably unsuspecting villagers for the Russian side, according to investigations by the public prosecutor’s office.
The two suspects are Ukrainian police officers who are supposed to support Russia. Even when the village of Hrosa was occupied by Russians from February to September 2022, the brothers cooperated with the occupiers. For example, interrogating Ukrainians or patrolling Russian checkpoints, says Dmytro Chubenko, spokesman for the Kharkiv region prosecutor’s office.
He would prefer to document Russian war crimes, but collaborators must be found, says prosecutor spokesman Dmytro Chubenko.
Information for Russian intelligence
As the Ukrainian army approached, the suspected collaborators fled to Russia and were now in the Russian region of Belgorod, from where they coordinated their activities. “The suspects communicated with villagers and passed information to Russian FSB intelligence officers to launch the rocket attack. They simply wanted to destroy people,” Chubenko said.
He couldn’t say anything about the specific goals of the two suspects because they were in Russia and would probably stay there. Based on the current status of the investigation, there will probably be a trial in absentia.
“We had collaborators”
“We had collaborators who helped the Russians,” says Valentina Kosijenko, whose modest house is directly opposite the site of the attack. As her ducks waddle through the yard, the old lady points to the pile of wood that was once her beloved gazebo. The roof and a few windows were also broken.
She adjusts her blue knit hat and wipes the tears from her eyes. “I’m still in shock and can see all the corpses lying here. I’m afraid to go out of the house at night and don’t even look out the window,” says Kosijenko.
She can still see the many corpses in front of her: Valentina Kosijenko lives directly opposite the impact site. Her windows and roof were destroyed.
“Half of them are oriented towards Russia”
Vasyl Pletinka also sees the future of the small village bleak. The young are in the army, the rich are abroad, the traitors have fled to Russia, and only pensioners live in Hrosa, he snorts angrily as he guts fish in his backyard.
Half of those who remain are heading to Russia because gas and electricity supposedly don’t cost anything there. “I don’t like Russia at all. Wherever there is Russia, there is war. Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh, Chechnya, Afghanistan – Russia was there everywhere,” says Pletinka.
“Police officers in particular switched sides”
A little further away, Antonina Romanivna sits in the narrow kitchen of her green wooden house. The open-minded old lady heard about the two police officers who are said to have informed the Russians before the attack.
She says about the time of the Russian occupation of Hrosa: “Our police officers in particular went to the Russian side and then beat their own people. Those who were against the Russians were beaten and imprisoned, but our Ukrainians later crushed the Russian tanks .”
Romanivna smiles with satisfaction because her grandson was also mistreated by the Russian occupiers. Despite the traumatic Russian attack on October 5th, she seems calmer than other villagers and is not afraid. “Who would want to harm me? Besides, there are Ukrainian soldiers with machine guns living next door.”
Around 2,000 investigations into collaboration
According to the regional prosecutor’s office, there are about 2,000 investigations into suspected collaboration in the Kharkiv region. Some of the people are not accessible to Ukrainian law enforcement authorities; they have fled to Russia, are in other European countries or are hiding in Ukraine.
In 300 cases, people were sentenced to prison or suspended sentences for collaboration, said Tschubenko from the public prosecutor’s office. These people worked in Russian occupation administrations or helped the occupying troops. They fed them, provided them with accommodation on their own initiative or provided them with other support.
“I have a bad feeling when I think about the number of collaborators,” says lawyer Tschubenko. They are bad for Ukraine’s image, but unfortunately such people exist everywhere. “I would rather document Russian war crimes, but unfortunately we also need to identify our traitors. That is a task that must be done.”