Rebuilding and Remembrance in Bucha and Irpin

Collection of bombed civilian automobiles, near Irpin

July 22, 2024

Photo: C. Buckley

by Cynthia Buckley, Professor of Sociology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Increasing global notoriety for eastern Ukrainian cities like Mariupol and Bakhmut highlights savage destruction during the Russian takeover in the early years of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Occupying a more painfully detailed space of remembrance, the smaller towns of Irpin and Bucha evoke powerful memories of shelling, occupation, and violence in the early days following February 24, 2022. The liberation of Bucha and Irpin, each just a short drive from an end station of Kyiv’s metro system, provides the world with first-hand accounts of life, terror, and death under occupation. After Russian forces were driven out in spring of 2022, documentation of the destruction of buildings and damage to public and private housing began. Residents during the occupation provided detailed accounts of indiscriminate shelling, shooting of passenger cars, sexual assaults, detentions, and executions. The carnage in both cities provided a strong impetus for NGOs such as the Center for Civil Liberties to collect information on war crimes. 

Restored and occupied high-rises near the city center, Bucha

July 22, 2024

Photo: C. Buckley

By the summer of 2024, when I visited these communities, both Irpin and Bucha were already boasting verdant city centers, well-developed commercial centers, and rehabilitated housing. Much of the rebuilding in city centers took place in the year following occupation, with a focus on peripheral areas ongoing. In Bucha, a moving memorial noting the more than 100 bodies found in the local church upon liberation now occupies the back garden of the church. Elsewhere, the transformation of roads, buildings, and infrastructure renders the past destruction nearly invisible. Funded by the Ukrainian government with extensive international assistance, changes occurred at a pace unthinkable in early 2022. Some homeowners have registered dissatisfaction over the past few years for bearing the cost of repair and reconstruction, while other housing units await rebuilding. Nonetheless, the reconstruction of both Irpin and Bucha demonstrates a strong commitment to rehabilitating liberated areas and an impressive level of state coordination and capacity, particularly for a Ukrainian regime under extensive stress.

Memorial to the individuals who died in the occupation of Bucha

July 22, 2024

Photo: C. Buckley

Main squares and shops are lively on a sunny summer day, yet many of the pre-invasion residents of Irpin and Bucha have not returned. Understandably, given the persistent air raids in and near Kyiv, some await an end to the conflict. Others are among those unaccounted for: some purposefully “disappeared” during the occupation and who are still being searched for; some simply casualties (known and unknown) of the Russian onslaught. Those residing in these restored areas cohabit with the memories of life pre-invasion, many with the physical and mental traumas relating to the grisly experiences of occupation and loss. While the physical transformations of both Irpin and Bucha post-liberation are astounding, deeper transformations critical to the recovery of these towns will require commitments just as strong, coordinated and capacious. Those will likely take that much longer.

Further Reading:

Serhiy Nuzhnenko. 2023. Irpin, Ukraine’s ‘Hero City,” Rebuilds After Liberation,” RFE/RL. April 21. https://www.rferl.org/a/irpin-rebuilds-liberation-ukraine-russia-invasion/32373389.html

World bank Group. 2024. “Updated Ukraine Recovery and Reconstruction Needs Assessment Released." February 15. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2024/02/15/updated-ukraine-recovery-and-reconstruction-needs-assessment-released

Center for Civil Liberties. “Map of enforced Disappearances in Ukraine.” https://ccl.org.ua/en/tools/map-of-enforced-disappearances-in-ukraine/

Franklin Foer. 2022. The Horror of Bucha." The Atlantic. April 4. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/russia-bucha-killings-war-crimes-genocide/629470/

UN News. 2024. Ukraine: Bucha and Irpin rise from the ashes of Russian military,” February 23. https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/02/1146872