Surrounded by forest, the village of Yahidne in northern Ukraine looks deceptively peaceful.
On a bright, summer’s day, a troupe of singers dressed in national costume perform in the ruins of a bombed-out, community club. Their voices lilt and lift, as their bodies sway. The audience clap, smile and tap their feet.
On the surface, there are little signs of the shared trauma they’ve suffered. But look closer at this joyful scene, and several spectators are weeping. Others hold their heads in their hands.
Kyiv under attack – latest updates on Ukraine war
The memory of “28 days of horror” – when Russian soldiers trapped almost the entire population in a school basement – is still raw.
In the middle of their performance, the singers fall silent, their heads bowed to honour those who lost their lives when the Russians took over the village.
“We went in as children and came out as adults. Your values change when you can’t eat, sleep or go for a shower,” says 16-year-old Marina, one of the singers. “It’s hard to forget and hard to remember.”
Back in late February 2022, in the violent first month of war, almost the entire village – with a population of around 400 before the Russian invasion – was held captive below ground in dark, freezing temperatures with little electricity.
They were starved of food and water, tormented and tortured by their kidnappers. Ten of them died in captivity, while others spoke of enduring humiliating and brutal conditions where disease and fear ran rampant.
Now more than a year after their ordeal, these villagers are about to be the star witnesses in Ukraine‘s biggest war crimes trial to date which will see 15 Russian soldiers go on trial. Prosecutors believe the case is so strong it could end up in the International Criminal Court.
Sky News has been given access to a mass of evidence gathered over more than a year of investigations. Our team has also interviewed more than a dozen survivors and seen the 3D scanners that are being used to recreate the crime scene in forensic detail.
A list of names of villagers killed by the Russians
During that time, 368 of the villagers including 69 children were kept in appalling, cramped conditions. The 10 who died during their confinement were mainly elderly people who deteriorated due to the unhygienic conditions and lack of sustenance.
Corpses lay among the living for hours, sometimes days, until the Russians could be persuaded to bury them.
‘They deliberately starved us’
Valentyna Lohrynchuk was among those held captive. “How can I describe something like that?,” she says, with horror in her voice. “One minute we’d be talking to a granny and then next, we’d realise they were dead. They deliberately starved us. They had food but they didn’t give us any.”
Even then when a group of seven was allowed to go to the village cemetery to dig graves for those who had died, within minutes they were shelled from Russian positions.
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Ukraine war: Inside hostage scene
The village priest, Dimetry Yarema, who was conducting the burial prayers, says: “It was definitely the Russians who shelled us. I feel it was a deliberate tactic to try to kill us or scare us.”
The Ukrainian lawyers will attempt to prove the Russian soldiers violated a string of international laws centring on the treatment of civilians during war time. These include setting up their military base inside a protected building and using the villagers as human shields to stave off attacks by the Ukrainian military who were fighting to reclaim Yahidne.
The 34-year-old prosecutor who has been working non-stop on this case for more than a year is optimistic about the outcome. Serhil Krupko unlocks the safe in his office and shows us some of the vital evidence.
War crimes cases, he explains, rest on multiple factors. “It is necessary to have physical evidence which can prove the individuals were there. As well as witnesses who can identify them.”
The documents Krupo and his team have collected include army files with photographs of the soldiers and all their personal details. He says Ukrainian journalists, who are part of a group called the Reckoning Project, helped gather a stash of evidence.
Some of the journalists tracked down Russian sim cards, traced them to Russia and even interviewed some of the soldiers involved who’d returned there.
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Ukrainian prosecutor, Serhil Krupko, shows Sky News’s Alex Crawford some of the evidence in this case
On top of that, the prosecutors have more than 300 survivors who were also witnesses to the crimes and have been able to identify the Russian soldiers involved, as well as give detailed accounts about what they did and how they behaved.
Villagers unable to stretch or move for 16 hours
In the windowless basement, villagers were kept confined to separate cell-like rooms, which were all so overcrowded that there was no space to lay down. Many spoke about regularly spending 16 hours straight in a single position, unable to stretch or move.
There was limited access to urinate or defecate and they were given buckets to use in the corner of some of the rooms. School teacher, Valentyna Danilova, says she believes it was a deliberate tactic to break them: “They didn’t want us to feel human,” she says. “We had no hygiene – we couldn’t even wash our hands the first 10 days.”
Many of the elderly people were terrified to drink very much, she adds, because they feared going to the toilet with little privacy or worse, being forced to urinate where they sat.
‘No War’ painted on the wall by children
The walls of the basement still have some paintings drawn by the children and maybe some of the adults. We find the words of the Ukrainian anthem as well as hearts coloured in red and the words “no war” inscribed above in big letters.
Perhaps the most poignant image though is of a line of stick figures, stark in the simplicity of the drawing but with some of the figures clearly shooting those next to them in the head.
Occasionally, the soldiers opened the basement door to let them out to go to the toilet behind the main school building but every time they ventured out from the basement, they risked being shelled in the battle over the village.
The Russians told them they had already taken Kyiv and that President Zelenskyy had fled. They even presented their captives with a Russian newspaper detailing this ‘news’ of the Ukrainian collapse.
Ivan, the school caretaker, shows the calendar that was marked on the wall
‘None of us expected to leave alive’
The teacher, Valantyna, managed to smuggle a bit of charred wood into the basement and started a calendar where she chalked off the days and kept a note of the dead – those who were killed as the Russian troops entered the village and another list of those who died while being held in the underground school rooms.
With so little light, they struggled to differentiate between day or night.
“None of us expected to leave alive,” Valantyna says, “and there was an understanding among us that one day our children would come and find this place and at least they should know who was here and what happened.”
She describes how some of the guards seemed to enjoy tormenting their prisoners. It was freezing cold in the basement, so she asked to collect a blanket for her elderly mother.
“They agreed but the moment I got outside, the soldiers started shooting at my feet. I stumbled and they laughed. It was funny to them.”
Mykhailo Shevchenko’s son was killed
Several villagers were killed before making it into the basement. Mykhailo Shevchenko said his son Viktor was one of the first killed as the Russian troops entered Yahidne.
His death will be investigated too after post-mortems appeared to show he was tied up and tortured before being shot in the head. His body then lay in the garden of his home for more than two weeks.
“Seventeen days he was lying there barefoot and his hands were tied behind his back,” says Mykhailo.
The villagers’ hopes have been raised by the guilty verdicts handed out to soldiers involved in terrorising local resident Nadiia Radchenko’s family.
Nadiia Radchenko in front of her husband’s grave
Her husband was killed, her house looted and guns put to their heads. Ukrainian lawmakers sentenced three Russian soldiers to 12 years in prison in absentia.
“It’s good to get a verdict,” Nadiia says, “but not good they’re still walking free because everyone needs to be held accountable and if you deliberately came to attack us, you need to be punished.”
Serhil Krupko, the Ukrainian prosecutor, emphasised to us how important he thinks this case is. “We believe his case will show how the Russians were using ordinary civilians as human shields,” he says. “And our international criminal court partners were very interested in this.”
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World
In the idyllic Cognac region of southern France, Trump’s tariffs threaten a centuries-old way of life
The impact of Trump’s tariffs is reaching deep into every economy.
We travelled into the French rural heartland, heading for Cognac – the home of French brandy.
It is only half the size of Surrey but its exports to America are worth €1bn a year and that trade is now severely threatened.
The first buds are out on the vines of Amy Pasquet’s vineyard.
An American, she has married into the industry and with her French husband owns JLP Cognac.
She knows more than most the bond brandy has formed between their two countries that goes back to the war.
Tariffs latest: Follow live updates
Ms Pasquet said: “A lot of the African-American soldiers had really loved their experience here and had brought back the cognac. And I think that stayed because this African-American community truly is a community and they want to drink like their grandfather did.”
The ties remain with rappers like Jay Z’s love for cognac.
However, Ms Pasquet adds: “There’s also this other community of people who have been drinking bourbon for a long time, love bourbon, but find the prices just outrageous today. So they want to try something different.”
Amy Pasquet owns JLP Cognac with her husband
JLP’s products were served at New York’s prestigious Met Gala.
They were preparing to launch new product lines in the US. But now that’s in doubt.
It is hard being an American in France now, Ms Pasquet says.
Her French neighbours are appalled by what US President Donald Trump is doing.
She continues: “They’re like, okay, America’s forgotten how close France and America are as far as (their) relationship is concerned. And I think that’s hurtful on both sides. I think it’s important to remember that the US is many things, and not just this one person, and there are millions of inhabitants that didn’t vote for him.”
A fresh challenge for a centuries-old tradition
Making cognac takes years, using techniques that go back centuries. In another vineyard we met Pierre Louis Giboin whose family have been doing it for more than 200 years.
In a cellar dating back to the French Revolution, barrels of oak sit under thick cobwebs, ageing the brandy.
The walls are lined with a unique black mould that thrives off the vapours of cognac.
They have seen threats come and go over those centuries, wars, weather, pestilence. But never from a country they regard as one of their oldest allies and best of customers.
Read more:
What China could do next as Trump’s tariff war
How tariffs will affect your money
Could Trump’s tariffs tip the world into recession?
Pierre Louis Giboin’s cellar dates back to the French revolution
Mr Trump’s tariffs, says Mr Giboin, now threaten a way of life.
“It’s at the end of like very good times in the Cognac region. It’s been like 10 years when everything’s been perfect, we have good harvest, we sell really easily all the stock, but now I mean it’s the end.”
Ms Pasquet and Mr Giboin are unusual.
Most cognac makers sell their produce through the drink’s four big houses, Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier.
Some have been told the amounts they can sell have been drastically reduced.
Independents though like them must find new markets if the tariff threat persists.
Confusion away from the chaos
Outside in the dappled light of a Cognac evening Mr Giboin and I toast glasses of pineau – the diluted form of cognac drunk as an aperitif.
In this idyllic corner of France, a world away from Washington, Mr Trump’s trade war on Europe simply makes no sense.
“He’s like angry against the whole world and the way he talks like that Europe the EU was made against the US to cheat on the US. It’s just crazy to think like this,” Mr Giboin says.
It’s not just what Mr Trump’s done. It’s how Europe now strikes back that concerns the French. And it’s not just in Cognac where they’re concerned
France exports more than €2bn worth of wine to America.
In the heart of the Bordeaux wine region, Sylvie Courselle’s family have been making wine since the 1940s at their Chateau Thieuley vineyard.
It’s bottling season but they can’t prepare the wine headed for America while everything is up in the air.
Showing me the unused reels of US labels for her wine she told me she was losing sleep over the uncertainty.
Later she was meeting with her American distributors.
Gerry Keogh sells Ms Courselle’s wine across the US.
He says the entire industry is reeling
Sylvie Courselle with distributers
The Chateau Thieuley vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region
“I think it’s like anything. You don’t really believe it’s happening. And even when you’re in the midst of it, it was kind of like 9/11.
“You’re like… This is actually happening. It’s unbelievable. And when you start seeing the repercussions from the stock market, et cetera, and how it’s impacting every level, it’s quite shocking.”
They know the crisis is far from over and could now escalate.
“We feel stuck in the middle of this commercial war and we don’t have the weapons to fight, I think,” Ms Courselle said.
It is, she says, very stressful.
Gerry Keogh
The histories of America and France have been intertwined for centuries through revolutions against tyranny and two wars fighting for liberty.
America used to call France its oldest ally, but under Donald Trump its now seen here as turning on France and the rest of Europe in a reckless and unjustified trade war.
It is all doing enormous harm to relations between the US and its European allies.
How Europe now decides to retaliate will help determine the extent of that damage.
World
In the idyllic Cognac region of southern France, Trump’s tariffs threaten a centuries-old way of life
The impact of Trump’s tariffs is reaching deep into every economy.
We travelled into the French rural heartland, heading for Cognac – the home of French brandy.
It is only half the size of Surrey but its exports to America are worth €1bn a year and that trade is now severely threatened.
The first buds are out on the vines of Amy Pasquet’s vineyard.
An American, she has married into the industry and with her French husband owns JLP Cognac.
She knows more than most the bond brandy has formed between their two countries that goes back to the war.
Tariffs latest: Follow live updates
Ms Pasquet said: “A lot of the African-American soldiers had really loved their experience here and had brought back the cognac. And I think that stayed because this African-American community truly is a community. and they want to drink like their grandfather did.”
The ties remain with rappers like Jay Z’s love for cognac.
However, Ms Pasquet adds: “There’s also this other community of people who have been drinking bourbon for a long time, love bourbon, but find the prices just outrageous today. So they want to try something different.”
Amy Pasquet owns JLP Cognac with her husband
JLP’s products were served at New York’s prestigious Met Gala.
They were preparing to launch new product lines in the US. But now that’s in doubt.
It is hard being an American in France now, Ms Pasquet says.
Her French neighbours are appalled by what US President Donald Trump is doing.
She continues: “They’re like, okay, America’s forgotten how close France and America are as far as (their) relationship is concerned. And I think that’s hurtful on both sides. I think it’s important to remember that the US is many things, and not just this one person, and there are millions of inhabitants that didn’t vote for him.”
A fresh challenge for a centuries-old tradition
Making cognac takes years, using techniques that go back centuries. In another vineyard we met Pierre Louis Giboin whose family have been doing it for more than 200 years.
In a cellar dating back to the French Revolution, barrels of oak sit under thick cobwebs, ageing the brandy.
The walls are lined with a unique black mould that thrives off the vapours of cognac.
They have seen threats come and go over those centuries, wars, weather, pestilence. But never from a country they regard as one of their oldest allies and best of customers.
Read more:
What China could do next as Trump’s tariff war
How tariffs will affect your money
Could Trump’s tariffs tip the world into recession?
Pierre Louis Giboin’s cellar dates back to the French revolution
Mr Trump’s tariffs, says Mr Giboin, now threaten a way of life.
“It’s at the end of like very good times in the Cognac region. It’s been like 10 years when everything’s been perfect, we have good harvest, we sell really easily all the stock, but now I mean it’s the end.”
Ms Pasquet and Mr Giboin are unusual.
Most cognac makers sell their produce through the drink’s four big houses, Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier.
Some have been told the amounts they can sell have been drastically reduced.
Independents though like them must find new markets if the tariff threat persists.
Confusion away from the chaos
Outside in the dappled light of a Cognac evening Mr Giboin and I toast glasses of pineau – the diluted form of cognac drunk as an aperitif.
In this idyllic corner of France, a world away from Washington, Mr Trump’s trade war on Europe simply makes no sense.
“He’s like angry against the whole world and the way he talks like that Europe the EU was made against the US to cheat on the US. It’s just crazy to think like this,” Mr Giboin says.
It’s not just what Mr Trump’s done. It’s how Europe now strikes back that concerns the French. And it’s not just in Cognac where they’re concerned
France exports more than €2bn worth of wine to America.
In the heart of the Bordeaux wine region, Sylvie Courselle’s family have been making wine since the 1940s at their Chateau Thieuley vineyard.
It’s bottling season but they can’t prepare the wine headed for America while everything is up in the air.
Showing me the unused reels of US labels for her wine she told me she was losing sleep over the uncertainty.
Later she was meeting with her American distributors.
Gerry Keogh sells Ms Courselle’s wine across the US.
He says the entire industry is reeling
Sylvie Courselle with distributers
The Chateau Thieuley vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region
“I think it’s like anything. You don’t really believe it’s happening. And even when you’re in the midst of it, it was kind of like 9/11.
“You’re like… This is actually happening. It’s unbelievable. And when you start seeing the repercussions from the stock market, et cetera, and how it’s impacting every level, it’s quite shocking.”
They know the crisis is far from over and could now escalate.
“We feel stuck in the middle of this commercial war and we don’t have the weapons to fight, I think,” Ms Courselle said.
It is, she says, very stressful.
Gerry Keogh
The histories of America and France have been intertwined for centuries through revolutions against tyranny and two wars fighting for liberty.
America used to call France its oldest ally, but under Mr Trump it is now being as turned on, as France, along with the rest of Europe, finds itself in what many would argue is a reckless and unjustified trade war.
It is all doing enormous harm to relations between the US and its European allies.
How Europe now decides to retaliate will help determine the extent of that damage.
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