The photo of a dead woman's hand, her freshly-varnished nails standing out against the mud on her skin, became an iconic image of Russian atrocities in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. Months after the picture was taken, her family and friends are struggling to cope with her loss.
The Bucha Victim Who Became A Symbol Of Ukraine's Suffering
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The brightly painted nails -- four were red and the fifth had a small purple heart bordered by silver varnish -- revealed the woman's identity. Iryna Filkina was a 52-year-old heating operator at a shopping mall when she was killed in Bucha, a town northwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
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When journalists entered Bucha following the withdrawal of Russian forces, they found Filkina's body next to her bike.
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Filkina died on Yablunska Street, a long, now-infamous, thoroughfare on Bucha's southern edge, where other bodies of civilians, some with their hands tied behind their backs, were left untended. The mayor of Bucha says 400 civilians were killed by Russian forces.
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Iryna’s beautician, Anastasia Subacheva, who now lives in Vilnius, Lithuania, recalls the evening in April when she came across a social media post showing the lifeless hand. "I went through our messages and compared the pictures I took of her to that picture. And it was her. I started screaming.... I cried on my mother's shoulder, I felt very empty and hurt."
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Another person still trying to make sense of her killing is her partner, Anatoliy Shchyruk, pictured here holding one of her sweaters.
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Svitlana Safonova looks at a photo of Filkina, who was her sister. She learned of her death from Filkina's daughters.
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On a cold February day, Safonova was joined by Shchyruk as they visited Filkina's grave in Bucha. They struggled to hold back their tears after placing 12 pink roses near the simple cross that marks her final resting place.
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"For me the world ended on March 5 (believed to be the day of Filkina's death)," Safonova said as she sobbed next to her sister's grave. "It is one thing when someone dies after a long illness and is buried. It is another if someone is killed unexpectedly and for no reason."
