According to recent allegations, Russian forces abducted and executed the mayor of a Ukrainian hamlet, Olga Sukhenko, along with her son and husband. According to the New York Post, she and her husband Ihor, as well as their 25-year-old son Oleksandr, were abducted on March 23.
The dead were apparently discovered on Saturday, April 2, in a trench-like improvised grave that Russian forces had used as a barracks. According to local media, the lady and her family were assassinated. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk confirmed her death, saying Sukhenko and her family were abducted and slaughtered “in captivity.”
Information about Olga Sukhenko?
Sukhenko was the mayor of Motyzhyn, a Ukrainian hamlet only a few kilometers from the country’s capital, Kyiv. Although nothing is known about the late Ukrainian mayor, she seemed to be in her late fifties or early sixties. Olga Sukhenko (as Olha) joined the Motyzhyn village council in 2002, according to her Facebook page. It’s probable that Sukhenko ran for mayor in 2006. This information, however, could not be validated. The late mayor apparently went to school at No127 Kyiv and then went on to study at the Kyiv Academy of Water Transport, named for Peter Konadevich-Sagaidachny.
According to a Ukrainian military source,
“The occupiers assumed they were working with our forces, providing us with spots to aim our artillery. The whole family was tortured, butchered, and killed by these vermin. They will be held accountable for this.”
Meanwhile, several sources suggested that the mayor’s corpse, together with her husband and kid, was dumped into a woodland hole. According to Daria Belenitsyna, who claimed to Reuters that she was Oleksandr’s girlfriend, Russian forces paid a visit to Olga Sukhenko’s home on March 23.
Belenitsyna said that the soldiers returned and blindfolded Sukhenko and her husband. They also allegedly returned to their home a third time to pick up Olga Sukhenko’s son, Oleksandr. Anton Herashchenko, a local native, recognized the three remains as belonging to the Sukhenko family and said that the “Russian invaders” tortured and executed the village head’s whole family. A fourth corpse was discovered near the same hole. However, that has yet to be determined.
According to the Associated Press, a villager called Oleg alleged that the Russian military sought to take over the community, targeting village authorities and killing anyone who refused to obey. Sukhenko is also said to have refused to comply with the requests of Russian military forces.
