“The Russians looted and robbed every home,” Mr Mikulich said. “They stole everything they could get their hands on, from gold to microwaves and, when people had the chance, they ran.”

During The Telegraph’s visit, a resident returned to his shelled home to see what he could retrieve. He told Mr Mikulich there was an unexploded grenade in the garage of his neighbour’s house. 

Mr Mikulich retrieved and deactivated it. “If it helps make their home safer to return to, I had to help,” he said.

By a communal cooking fire outside an apartment building, Ina Bohun told how Russians had looted people’s homes and shot at them when they went to fetch water.

“I spoke to one Russian soldier, I asked him why he came here to kill civilians,” she said. When the Russian replied he would be jailed if he did not follow orders, the 53-year-old told him: “It is better to go to jail than kill innocent civilians.”

The soldier had protested his innocence, she said – but he turned and left without a word when she asked him about the civilian bodies on the ground.

So many bodies were lying in the street that many had to be gathered and moved to a mass grave in a churchyard.

Standing guard at the grave, a 44-year-old Ukrainian territorial defence fighter, who gave his name as Ruslan, said: “There are no words for this. They say they came here to save us. This is the Russian peace they speak of?”