💔 In the photo — three friends: Anastasiya Yalanska (26), Serhiy Ustymenko (25), and Maksym Kuzmenko (28). They didn’t yet know that this moment would be the last evidence of their lives. Just a few kilometers from where this picture was taken, an ambush awaited them—one no one would survive. On the morning of March 4, 2022, the friends loaded Serhiy’s SUV with animal food. Their plan was simple: deliver supplies to a shelter in Zabuchchya and visit Serhiy’s parents in Bucha. They knew it was dangerous, but they couldn’t imagine that the russian occupation of the city had already begun, and the streets had turned into sites of mass executions. They never made it to Serhiy’s parents’ home. russian soldiers fired around a hundred bullets at their car. Maksym was killed instantly by a headshot. Anastasiya managed to jump out of the vehicle, but she was shot in the legs. Serhiy also ran out, trying to shield his friend. “They just finished them off,” Anastasiya’s mother recalls. The bodies could only be retrieved from the street that afternoon, once the occupiers had moved further into the city center. Serhiy’s parents buried their son and his friends right in their own yard. 🗣️ “Neighbors dug the grave. Valeriy (Serhiy’s father) washed the children because I couldn’t handle it. I wrote each child’s full name and date of birth and added: ‘Shot on March 4, 2022.’ If we had been killed or bombed, I didn’t want the children to remain unidentified,” Serhiy’s mother recalls. Only after Bucha was liberated were the friends properly reburied. Forensics confirmed the brutality of that morning: Maksym had two gunshot wounds, Anastasiya was hit six times, and Serhiy nine times. russia must pay. The world has no right to stay silent. The world must scream.

About half-way into this chat Boris and I realized we were both from same city in Ukraine 🤯

Donor marching all weekend to help Achilles, let’s close this thing out!