«People were thrown out of the graves»: russians desecrated a cemetery in Donetsk Oblast; aerial bombs ripped coffins from a depth of two meters

Seven KAB-250 bombs struck the village, killing one person and injuring six other locals. Three private homes were completely destroyed. Another 58 private homes and two high-rise buildings were damaged by blast waves and debris, and a fire sparked by the bombing spread over several hundred square meters.

The limbs of dozens of people were scattered across the cemetery grounds

Eyewitnesses told journalists from «Vchasno» that on July 2, the massive attack began unexpectedly: there were no pauses between the guided airstrikes, people did not have time to take cover.

«I was in the kitchen when the first GAB hit. I thought that was it, but then they started coming one after another. I dropped everything and ran with my daughter into the bedroom because it seemed to have a smaller window. It was very loud—I thought they were bombing our yard. But the windows were intact, so we realized it was a little farther away. Although the house shook after every explosion,» says Valentina, a resident of Oleksandrivka.

The last two airstrikes «landed» 40 meters from her house: the windows eventually blew out, and the shock wave damaged the interior doors—the impact sent them crashing into the wall, shattering the glass panels. However, compared to what the occupiers did to the local cemetery and nearby houses, this is nothing, the woman is convinced. She and her daughter did not suffer any physical injuries, but they are still terrified.

«When they started shelling us again the very next day, I thought that it would strike us for sure. For some reason, I had this feeling that it was our turn now… And we didn’t have time to take cover either. We hid behind the couch again,» says Valentina.

Serhiy, an eyewitness to the shelling, adds: The consequences of the massive shelling were immediately severe—the screams of the wounded and their relatives could be heard in the streets, and bystanders began running to provide medical assistance. Once the locals had recovered from the shelling, some went to help their neighbors board up their windows. However, the damage was extensive, and several hundred residents of Oleksandrivka were left without windows. It took several hours for locals to realize the extent of the damage to the cemetery. Dozens of graves had been unearthed, even though they had been buried at a considerable depth.

«People were thrown out of the graves, ripped from the ground along with their coffins; the coffins were smashed by the impacts… Bones lay on the grass in the cemetery, and the headstones were bombed and shattered. The crosses were also torn down; some had fallen over, while others, like the monuments, were split in two. People who lived closer to the cemetery came to gather the bones, but they didn’t know where to put them, so they placed some of them together. In one pile lay several pairs of hands and feet… So it’s no longer clear which bones belong to whom,» Serhiy recalls.

Immediately after arriving, people tried to clean up the cemetery grounds, but they were unable to significantly improve its condition: most of the shattered granite monuments remained lying on the ground, as did the uprooted coffins. The locals decided to come back the next day to clean up, but there are very few people left to do the work—most have already left for safer parts of Ukraine.

«It's some kind of crazy battle against the dead. A war against our roots,» Sergey concludes.

This is not the first time that russian troops have shelled civilian cemeteries in cities near the front lines. Three years ago, they destroyed the cemetery in Kramatorsk twice. In addition, every day, the occupiers' rockets destroy all civilian infrastructure and residential buildings in the Donetsk region—the russians call this «liberation.»