They Fell Deeply in Love in Bucha. One Russian Bullet Ended It All.

She called him Sunshine. He called her Kitty.

They met nearly 20 years ago when she was working at a hospital and he sauntered through the door, young, muscular and beautiful, to fix the roof.

Iryna Abramova followed him to where he smoked cigarettes behind a wall. They started talking and fell in love, she said, “word by word.”

But a few weeks ago, the special connection she had with Oleh, and everything they built together in Bucha, ended in a single cruel gunshot.

On the morning of March 5, Iryna said, Russian soldiers attacked her house. They threw a grenade through the window, starting an enormous fire, and marched her and Oleh outside at gunpoint.

Then they took Oleh into the street, ordered him to strip off his shirt and made him kneel.

Iryna Abramova’s story is Bucha’s story. It is about heartbreak, bloodshed and, most of all, loss. Read more

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