Photos show graffitied walls and destroyed Ukrainian homes in the aftermath of Russian looting in Bucha
- For weeks, the Kyiv suburb of Bucha was occupied by Russian troops.
- Survivors told Insider photographer Erin Trieb that Putin's forces looted and destroyed homes.
Survivors of the weeks-long Russian occupation of Bucha in Ukraine said President Vladimir Putin's troops broke into people's homes, looted them, and destroyed property across the 35,000-person town, according to an Insider report by photographer Erin Trieb.
Russian troops left a complete mess in some homes, trashing kitchens, breaking furniture, and leaving glass bottles in people's yards.
Some homes had fruit or other food on the floor, Trieb reported, while graffiti was scrawled on the walls of others.
Nadezhda, 83, and her daughter, Tatyana, 62, decided to stay in Bucha when Russian troops arrived. At one point, Russian troops showed up at their home, asked to see documents and said not to worry. They parked a tank in their yard.
The Russian soldiers would later return to the home, this time to loot it.
"They were very rude," Nadezhda told Trieb. "They started to look in the houses around, looting, searching for expensive things."
Nadezhda said the Russian troops also left bullet casings in her yard.
Hundreds of civilians have been found dead in Bucha since Ukrainian forces recaptured the town from the retreating Russians two weeks ago.
"We were not ready to have so many dead bodies," Bucha's mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk said at a press conference earlier this week.
He said at least 403 civilian bodies — many of whom were brutally "tortured and killed" — have been found in mass graves and throughout the city.