When Russian soldiers shot Leonid Plyats and his boss in the back, the killings were recorded by CCTV cameras in clear and horrific detail. The videos obtained by the BBC are now in the possession of the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office and are evidence of a possible war crime.

This happened in the midst of fighting around Kyiv. The main roads to the capital became a battlefield, in particular the area near the bicycle shop, where Leonid worked as a security guard.

But in this case there was no shooting: the video clearly shows Russian soldiers armed to the teeth shooting at two unarmed Ukrainians and then looting a shop.

The BBC has restored the full sequence of events, comparing footage from numerous CCTV cameras with testimonies of people Leonid called that day, as well as Ukrainian volunteer fighters who tried to save him.

Russian soldiers drive up to the store in a stolen V-shaped van used by Russian troops and the words “Tank Special Forces Rus” written in black ink. They are dressed in Russian military uniforms and approach the gate with raised submachine guns, holding their fingers on the triggers.

Leonid goes to the soldiers with his hands up, showing that he is unarmed and does not pose a threat.

The Russian military first talks to him and his boss through the fence. There is no sound in the video, but all the men seem calm, even smoking. Then the Ukrainians turn around and the soldiers leave.

Suddenly, two Russians come back, squat, and then shoot two men in the back several times.

The chief is killed on the spot, and Leonid soon manages to get to his feet. He even tightens the belt around his thigh to slow the bleeding, and then stumbles into a security booth where he tries to call for help.

Vasyl Podlevsky, who also works as a security guard for the company, spoke twice on the phone with Leonid while he was bleeding and waiting for help. Leonid told him that the soldiers first assured him that they were not killing civilians, and then shot him in the back.

Then Vasily retells a conversation with his friend.

I say, “Lazy, how are you?”

“I’m on another CP,” he says.

I say, “Can you even bandage yourself?”

He answers me: “Vasya, I barely crawled here. I’m in so much pain, I feel bad.”

I said, “Lazy, hold on.” And he started calling our defense.

Before the war, people from the Terror Defense, whom Vasyl called, traded in air conditioners. Today they are volunteer fighters.

Sasha and Kostya show me videos on their mobile phones with Russian tanks passing by their positions. In March, their job was to send real-time information about Russians moving to Ukrainian military positions further down the road.

When Leonid Plyats was injured, they were instructed to cross the E40 highway, which was constantly shelled to help him. Even now, the road is littered with charred wreckage of tanks, indicating the intensity of fighting.

As the Square lay, bleeding, Russian soldiers were still working in the store.

Surveillance footage shows them shooting locks in various rooms, removing bicycles and scooters, going to the director’s office, drinking his whiskey and rummaging in his closets.

Sasha and Kostya were lightly armed and far behind the Russians in numbers. Therefore, they had to wait for the Russian military to leave, although they understood that Leonid was dying.

“We talked to him on the phone, tried to calm him down. We told him that everything was fine, that everything would be fine. We said he was on his way. Maybe it helped him. Maybe. But, unfortunately, by the time we we got there, he was dead, “they said.

Even when they were carrying the bodies of Leonid and his boss, they had to hide because Russian tanks were passing by.

There is a lot of convincing evidence against the people who committed the murders. The BBC has studied the video in great detail, and it clearly shows the face of a Russian soldier who we believe was one of the killers.

The recordings show that it took a long time for Russian soldiers to realize that they were being shot. They then smashed one of the CCTV cameras.

The BBC showed the footage to the Kyiv Oblast Police Chief, and he told us that after the retreat of Russian troops in late March, the bodies of 37 civilians were found on the road to Kyiv. They were all shot.

The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office confirms that it is currently investigating the murder of Leonid and his colleague as a possible war crime. This is one of more than 10,000 such cases registered.

“My father was not a soldier. He was a pensioner. A 65-year-old man. For what?” Leonid’s daughter Yulia Androschuk asks.

She is currently abroad and because of the war she could not even come to bury her father.

“I don’t have anger. I just have a deep grief. And, to be honest, I’m afraid of them. They’re so crazy … I’m afraid of them,” she said.

Julia hopes that the perpetrators will one day appear in court.

In the meantime, she wants people to know what happened to her father and to stop the killings.

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