Diana

📌 SHE WAS ONLY 23. RUSSIAN SOLDIERS TORTURED HER, RIPPED OUT HER FINGERNAILS, BURNED HER HANDS, AND SHOT HER. But even in the face of unimaginable cruelty, Karina Yershova refused to surrender. Bucha, Ukraine. March 2022. Karina left home one day and never returned. She was captured by Russian soldiers. Several weeks later, her body was discovered in a mass grave near the Church of St. Andrew the Apostle. Before her death, she had been subjected to horrific torture and then executed with a gunshot to the head. Her injuries included torn fingernails, burned skin, and a gunshot wound to her leg. The marks on her hands suggested that she had desperately fought back. What was done to her body is almost impossible to describe. Perhaps words capable of expressing such cruelty simply do not exist. Someone tried to save her. An elderly couple, Viktor and Natalia Mazokh, reportedly witnessed what was happening. According to a journalistic investigation, they rushed to help Karina. A Russian soldier killed them too. Karina was buried in a closed coffin. Her mother, Alyona, overwhelmed by grief, desperately tried to force the coffin open to see her daughter one last time. Relatives had to restrain her. A mother was denied even the chance to look at her child's face for the final time. In 2014, Karina and her family fled Russian-occupied Donetsk. They had already lost their home because of Russia. They hoped to find safety near Kyiv. Eight years later, Russian occupation caught up with her in Bucha. Twenty-three years old. An entire lifetime should have been ahead of her. Instead, there was torture, a mass grave, and a sealed coffin over which her mother wept. This is the face of Russian occupation. Not propaganda slogans about "liberation." Not empty promises of peace. But ripped-out fingernails, mutilated bodies, murdered civilians, and mothers who cannot even see their children one last time. Karina should still be alive. Viktor and Natalia should still be alive. Those responsible for their torture and murders, and those who gave the orders, must be brought to justice. Their names must never be erased. Their deaths must never be forgotten. And the crimes committed by Russian occupation forces must never go unpunished. Remember Karina Yershova. She was only 23. 💔🇺🇦 P.S. I'm gradually leaving X and continuing my writing on Substack, where I document Russia's war crimes and tell the stories of its victims. Please subscribe for free or support my work with a paid subscription. mykhailorohoza.substack.com