Yevheniia Motorevska

Montenegrin crime boss Radoje Zvicer was scampering back to his Kyiv apartment with his kids to escape a spring rainfall last year when shots rang out. Zvicer, who leads Montenegro's Kavach cocaine-trafficking clan, barely survived the attack, taking five bullets to his arms and chest. His dog and three children escaped unharmed. The family may owe their lives to the quick reaction of Zvicer's wife, Tamara, who was nearby and packing a pistol. She fired at the hitmen and they ran to their getaway vehicle, a Smart car, and sped off before burning the vehicle and fleeing Kyiv. A special police unit caught up with the gunmen outside the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa the following day, May 27, 2020, on their way to cross the nearby border into Moldova. Ukrainian national police announced that they had arrested four men - but images showed five people detained.

In the second part of our historical investigation, "Crimea: The War Before the War," the Kyiv Independent team continues to investigate how Russia expanded its presence in Crimea from the 1990s onward. The documentary draws on testimonies, memoirs, and video and photo archives, including unique footage from the island of Tuzla, unseen for more than 20 years, which was handed to our team by a Commander of the Border Guard Detachment that was deployed to Tuzla.

The Russian military has already killed more than 500 Ukrainian children during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Dozens of them were shot at close range with small arms. Among them were 10-year-old Kateryna Vinarska in Kharkiv region, 12-year-old Vladyslav Mahdyk in Kyiv region, and 15-year-old Mykhailo Ustianivsky in Kherson region. The Kyiv Independent's findings point to the systemic and deliberate nature of child murders by the Russian military in Ukraine. Our in-depth investigation allowed us not only to establish clear circumstances of the murders but also, in one instance, to identify those responsible for the killing of a child.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has used the Olenivka prison, located in Russian-occupied Donetsk Oblast, as a camp for prisoners of war and civilian hostages from Mariupol. Thousands of Ukrainians, including servicemen from the Azov Brigade, have been held captive in its cells. Those who returned from captivity spoke about the inhumane conditions of detention, hunger, and torture in this prison. For six months, the Kyiv Independent team has been working on recreating a picture of the events that took place in Olenivka. Journalists recorded dozens of interviews with the servicemen and civilians who witnessed gross violations of international law.

Russian forces looted two museums in Kherson in the fall of 2022 — the Art Museum and the Museum of Local History. As the Russian army retreated amid the Ukrainian counteroffensive, it seized over 33,000 pieces of art and historical artifacts, including Scythian, Gothic, and Sarmatian gold. This heist became the largest in Europe since World War II.

Russia seized Crimea in February–March 2014, shortly after the EuroMaidan Revolution, at a time when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had fled the country and the new authorities were just beginning to govern. Many believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin took advantage of the moment and annexed the peninsula. But when did Russia actually first attempt to seize Crimea? And why, long before the annexation — while Russian leaders publicly declared friendship with Ukraine and recognized its territorial integrity — were Russian flags already flying in Crimean cities, Russian warships present, festivals celebrating the Russian language held, and Russia's Empress Catherine glorified across the peninsula? All the while, leading Russian politicians were calling on Crimeans to embrace separatism on television.