Ukrainian mothers who survived Russian strike with their children recount horrifying scene
When a Russian warhead detonated on a Ukrainian street in April, Maksym kicked out a bus window as his mother urged him to run and leave her behind.
They'd gone out on Palm Sunday in Sumy, about 20 miles from Russia, so Maksym, now 14, could get a new outfit for school pictures. Maksym and mom Natalia Tenytska are now among the 25 passengers who survived the attack. The explosion and shrapnel from it killed 35 civilians on and near the bus.
"They're killing civilians. It's elimination of the Ukrainian nation," Tenytska said in Ukrainian. "They're just wiping our cities off the face of the earth."
The deadly bus ride
The bus Maksym and his mother rode on Palm Sunday followed Route 62, taking passengers to a university, the mall and the airport. The fare is 20 cents. The bus was crowded on April 13 as two Russian ballistic missiles bolted through the sky. The warheads were each propelled by 1,000 pounds of high explosives. One wrecked a conference center at Sumy State University. The other detonated nearby on Peter and Paul Street as the Route 62 bus approached.
"It got dark inside. My ears started ringing," Tenytska said. "People were shouting to open the doors."
Tetiana Pohorelova was also on the bus with her daughter Lisa, now 3, taking her to visit her grandparents.
"The first thing I thought was that I could feel my body," Pohorelova said in Ukrainian. "Lisa was crying and screaming. And I thought, 'OK, I can feel everything, Lisa is screaming, we're alive.'"
Pohorelova remembers the smell of burning and soot, the site of bodies on the ground. She and her daughter were covered in blood.
The warhead detonated as the bus approached, so passengers in the front were a human shield for those behind. Many others, on the street, were cut down. Pianist Olena Kohut, 47, was hit by shrapnel. Video captured her stumbling and falling to the ground before dying from her wounds.
Prosecutor Vitalii Dovhal was at the scene after the attack.
"It was all mud, dust, blood, crying and bodies," Dovhal said in Ukrainian.
Two children were among the 35 civilians killed. The attack left 145 people wounded.
Investigating war crimes in Ukraine
Dovhal said the attack on the bus was a war crime, one of many since Russia's Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine.
"It is just unimaginable to use such powerful, high-precision weapons in the central part of a city," Dovhal said.
Targeting civilians has been an international war crime since 1949. There were 178,391 war crime investigations open in Ukraine at the start of the fall, according to Ukraine's prosecutor general. Homes, schools and hospitals have been hit. Earlier this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took 60 Minutes to a playground where nine children were killed.
Ukraine also accuses Russian forces of targeting churches, libraries and museums.
Beth Van Schaack, who directed American support for Ukraine's investigations when she was U.S. ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, described Russia's attacks as "systemic."
"Attacks happen in towns and villages where there are no discernible military objectives. The attack seems to be calculated to make as much destruction as possible and to terrorize the civilian population," Van Schaack said. "It's an effort to subjugate and to terrorize the community in order to get the country to essentially capitulate."
In 2023, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin's arrest, charging him in a campaign against Ukrainian children.
"They're being kidnapped," Van Schaack said. "They're being subjected to Russification, to military training. They're forced to deny their Ukrainian roots. And ultimately, they're often put up for adoption or placed in foster homes in Russia."
Can Ukraine get justice?
Putin and his allies, who are secure in Russia, are unlikely to face justice. But Ukraine is holding trials. There have been 211 convictions, though nearly all of the defendants are at large.
Dovhal has patience. He showed 60 Minutes where evidence for future trials, including crashed drones and mangled missiles, is warehoused.
"On each part we find a serial number. We identify the part, where the part was manufactured and when this missile was assembled in a factory," Dohval said.
Ukrainian intelligence pinpointed the Russian units involved in the Palm Sunday attack in Sumy. Dovhal said he's convinced those responsible will be punished.
Russia said it was aiming at officers at an awards ceremony, allegedly being held in the conference center, during the Palm Sunday attack. But Dovhal said no troops were hit.
Pohorelova, months after surviving the bus attack with her daughter, hopes to see Russia answer for what it's done.
"I don't wish death on those people. I want them to learn how it feels to live in fear. I wish Ukraine could see the end of war," she said. "And I want people to be able to live in their own homes. That's it."