Rewriting Bucha Russian governor promotes paratrooper’s story that flips the narrative of one of the invasion’s most documented atrocities
In December 2022, the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine concluded that Russian forces “summarily executed or carried out attacks on individuals” in the early weeks of their full-scale invasion, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians in towns across the Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy regions. In Bucha, just outside Kyiv, U.N. investigators documented the killing of 73 civilians (54 men, 16 women, and three children) and said they were working to verify another 105 alleged executions. In July 2023, the city unveiled a memorial honoring the 501 people who died during the Russian occupation in March 2022.
Extensive reporting has thoroughly debunked Kremlin claims that the Bucha massacre was staged, but in Russia, the belief that Ukrainian forces were responsible still prevails. On May 14, 2025, Penza Governor Oleg Melnichenko added to Russia’s Bucha mythology by promoting an interview with paratrooper Alexey Kusakin, who claims that Russian invaders actually saved civilians during the city’s capture. Meduza summarizes Agentstvo’s reporting on the soldier’s account.
In a video shared on Governor Melnichenko’s Telegram channel, Alexey Kusakin recounts what he “saw in Bucha,” claiming that Ukrainian soldiers “used children as human shields,” while Russian troops only “evacuated” them. Journalists at Agentstvo reviewed leaked personal database records, which show that Kusakin served in Russia’s 234th Airborne Assault Regiment. In May 2022, The New York Times published an investigation uncovering weapons packing slips, POW testimony, and other evidence linking this Russian unit to the executions of Bucha residents who had recently joined the city’s defense forces.
“You know, there’s this picture online — our soldier standing in front of a stroller with children, and a Ukrofascist [sic] hiding behind it, using the kids as a shield,” Kusakin says in the interview.
Ukrainian authorities recovered the bodies of nine children after Russian troops were expelled from Bucha, and girls as young as 14 reported being raped by Russian soldiers. Still, Kusakin describes the occupation as a humanitarian act:
When you see a kid in the window and a Ukrofascist [sic] standing next to them, and you can’t do anything, because you understand the kids haven’t done anything wrong. And when my guys and I were getting them out, we didn’t care whether they were Ukrainian or whatever. All we thought was: they’re just kids. And kids shouldn’t have to see what war is.
Kusakin adds that he now visits “various schools” to teach children “lessons in courage.” He says most questions come from girls, “because half of them have fathers in the special military operation zone.”
In the video’s caption, Melnichenko writes that Kusakin “was in Bucha and saw with his own eyes what the enemy is capable of. […] That’s why it matters so much to him that his fellow citizens are safe and that our children never have to experience war.” According to the governor, Kusakin’s volunteer work is part of the Penza region’s initiative to promote war veterans — a local extension of the Kremlin’s “Time of Heroes” program to cultivate a “new elite.”
Agentstvo found social media posts in which Kusakin wrote about passing through the Ukrainian cities of Hostomel, Bucha, and Irpin, starting on February 24, 2022. He described the war as “terrifying” and said he never felt sure he’d survive. “I held on as best I could. The only thing that kept me from losing my mind was God — and the cross on my chest,” Kusakin wrote.