‘We can’t gather bodies due to heavy shelling, dogs are tearing them apart in street’

As a steady rain of shells and rockets falls on population centers surrounding Kyiv, the mayor of the suburb of Bucha reports artillery fire so heavy that residents are unable to gather the dead bodies from the streets.

“We can’t even gather up the bodies because the shelling from heavy weapons doesn’t stop day or night,” Mayor Anatol Fedoruk says.

“Dogs are pulling apart the bodies on the city streets. It’s a nightmare,” he says.

The suburb has been under sustained attack for a number of days.

“On Friday morning, there was a Ukrainian flag over Bucha, and then the Russian teams started coming in,” says local resident Vitaliy Shichko.

The 47-year-old has one bandage over two bullet wounds to his left wrist and another over purple bruises on the left side of his face.

“At first, they seemed to be sending in people they weren’t afraid of losing,” Shichko says.

“But when I was hiding in the basement, the Russians who found us were serious, well-equipped, with torches and full communications –- basically, special forces.”