The story of a policeman from Buchi who survived the occupation and helped people

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“It is similar to the patrol police – something like a sheriff in America. First of all, work with people, gaining the trust of the population, providing quality services, responding to complaints. Work is also carried out in the field of road traffic safety – there is a great emphasis on this.” – explains the major.

Photo: Police of the Kyiv region

He says that on February 24 he met him at the 1st police station in Buch. He remembers that there was anxiety since the evening. Already at 9 p.m., everyone was gathered around her. But still, until 4 o’clock in the morning, they almost did not suspect anything.

Maxim remembers that information about the invasion of the Russian Federation reached them, but he personally did not willingly believe it. At the same time, he adds that the premonition was not very good.

“And at 4 o’clock in the morning, when they heard all these explosions, which were mistaken for fireworks, they realized that everything had begun.” – emphasizes the policeman.

He says that in the early days he and his colleagues served in the district department, where they slept: on tables or the floor. Sometimes they went out to shoot down helicopters and guard administrative buildings.

Maksym could not return home. Already on the 25th, it was impossible to get to Gostomel.

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“My house was occupied. Bucha was already on the border, he spent the night in the district office. Fortunately, he did not return home then. Anyone who tried to do this was shot at the border of Bucha and Gostomel.” he says.

Even before the full occupation of Buchi, he had to live in a hospital. They understood that the Russians were occupying the city when they noticed that the flag of Ukraine had been removed. They lived in the basement of the hospital. In addition, a lot of food was brought to the building. As long as they could, they brought the wounded there – then the Russians started shooting the ambulances.

Maxim says that the place was not the safest, but permanent. The Russians used the hospital to cover their artillery. In addition, it was dangerous in the occupation, so the uniform of the policewoman was temporarily hidden.

“We had to get out of our sober mind – how to help everyone without great heroism – both the people and the Armed Forces. We buried weapons and IDs in the premises. After a while, the Russians came, but they did not understand who we were. We were handing out humanitarian aid.” – says the major.

The policeman assumes that the occupiers came to visit their relatives, who were also being treated. Then they visited again, looked for them, but found nothing. After the second time, they decided to use the evacuation corridor.

They continued to help people – filtering documents, taking in the wounded. When necessary, they carried out the dead. They also passed on information to the Armed Forces and helped Ukraine. After all, there was no other way out.

“Occupation is like an operating table. You don’t know if you will wake up or not. Your life is worthless, you have no rights, at one moment you can be killed, tortured. Just because you are in the wrong place, not at that time. Many people were shot like that. Somewhere a car was driving, somewhere a Russian sniper or just a Russian went crazy and shot everyone.” – says Kozhushko.

Finally, Maxim says that this is a life experience and he did not want to go through it at all.

Earlier, we talked about how Bucha and Irpin live a year after the full-scale invasion.

Read also: Agents of change. How children who survived the occupation of Kyiv region are reviving school art and printing parts for drones