What was the military camp abandoned by the Russians that exposes the horrors of the invasion

Dmitry Nekazakov told CNN what was the moment that will be remembered by Ukrainians: it was 6:40 in the morning of February 24 when he was walking his dog before going to work and Russian bombardments began on Hostomel, a city on the outskirts of Kiev. For almost a month the bombing did not stop. Nekazakov said he spent 20 nights sitting on the floor of his basement. During the day, he and other residents of his neighborhood went out to see the damage to their homes, and to think about plans to find safer places to take refuge.

Russian missiles and rockets that damaged buildings, lives and homes were fired from a large Russian base, hidden in the forest about 4 kilometers away.

Now, there are only the remains of that vast military camp among the trees. Ukrainian special forces showed CNN the camp, and are collecting clues from the rubble about Russia's possible plans in Kiev.

At the beginning of the invasion, as Russian troops advanced towards Kiev, Ukrainian special forces believe that 6,000 marines camped in this pine forest for a month, with freezing temperatures. From there and from a nearby camp, the Russian army launched attacks on Kiev, Hostomel and Bucha.

“Here the deployment of subsequent actions, directions of the offensive, tactics of action, etc., was decided,” a Ukrainian special forces officer told CNN, noting where each part of the operation was located.

Russian forces built shelters, command posts, ammunition stores and lines of communication using the trees and wood of the forest.

They slept in underground fortifications, covered with wood and green wooden boxes that had previously contained BM-21 grad multi-rocket launchers and tube artillery. The black wires connected each of the shelters through the forest for communication.

The forest was also full of food containers bearing the mark of the Russian army: a member of the special forces found a notebook with instructions from a past mission in Azerbaijan. There was also a Russian camouflage and concealment instruction manual, along with clothes and shoes.

Pointing to the size of the camp, one officer told CNN: “Russians do not fight in quality, but in quantity.”

“They don't consider soldiers as people, for them they are cannon fodder and consumables.” The tactics of the Russian army are, perhaps, similar to those of the Middle Ages, when they were taken not by skill, but by quantity,” he added.

Russian soldiers broke into nearby neighborhoods, seized houses and terrorized residents. Torture, humiliation and shallow graves of people killed by the inhabitants of the base are now haunting those villages.

Vitaliy Chernysh, a resident of the village of Zdvyzhivka, outside Kiev, told CNN that he was riding a bicycle through his village when he was captured by Russian forces, who were “hunting Nazis”. He was detained for almost 24 hours.

He said he was locked in a shed after being forced through a minefield. Russian soldiers were debating whether to spray it with gasoline and had threatened to take it to the crematorium. Then they shot around his body while he was tied up, and they constantly asked him what his last wish would be.

“They hit me in the arms and legs, below the waist. The bruises remain. But I'm alive and well, thank God,” he told CNN.

In his garden, an artillery rocket still lies in his field, another daily reminder of his painful ordeal and of the Russian occupation and attacks.

Vasiliy Benca, a local priest from Zdvyzhivka, revealed to CNN that Russian troops, tanks and armored cars converged in the village and remained there for a month. People were afraid to get out of their basements. When Benca did so, he said he found five men whose bodies had been mutilated in the garden, and two more in the woods.

“The Russians asked me - or forced me - to bury two other women in the cemetery,” the priest told CNN.

Nekazakov, who fled when the Russians attacked his village, returned to his home in Hostomel. He remembers all the bodies he went through when he left and regrets that he couldn't do anything about it.

He now hates Vladimir Putin and the soldiers who ravaged his village.

“I just feel hate. Never in hundreds of years would we have thought that this could happen. We won't be able to forgive him for the rest of our lives,” he concluded.

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