At night, residents receive a reassuring message. The military TV channel of the Ukrainian army place a video on Facebook. It claims that a Russian column was destroyed near Makariv. “They will definitely sleep well,” it reads and local media shared the news.
But not all vehicles with a “V” turn out to be disabled. Someone posts a video of Russian tanks in a suburb of Makariv on Facebook the next morning. There is also a YouTube video of Russian vehicles, presumably in Borodyanka.
So the danger has not yet passed. But the reports of the Russian soldiers on the move did not stop two residents of Marakiv from taking to the road that morning. In their red car, a Ukrainian ZAZ type Sens from 2014, they drive out of their hometown towards the northwest. They will never arrive at their destination.
No threat
At 1.16 p.m., the car is attacked by a Russian armored car, presumably a BMP-2, at an intersection at the end of the city. Why the Russian soldier points the barrel of his armored vehicle at the small car that has stopped 50 meters away is a mystery. On images there appears to be no threat to the Russian military.
Several shots are fired and the car explodes. The two occupants do not survive the impact, they die in their car. There are no weapons or military clothing on the horrific images of the victims, it appears to be an elderly man and a woman.
After the shelling, the armored car turns and heads towards Nalyvaikivka, a small column with an armored transport vehicle and three tankers is following at high speed.
The mayor of Marakiv place a few hours later a message in his public Telegram channel: “The occupier brutally killed two civilians,” he writes to its residents. The mayor immediately issues a ban: for the time being no one is allowed to go out on the streets to the surrounding villages. For two residents, that ban comes too late.
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