In the village of Arkhangelskoye, Kherson region, captured by the Russians, the spouses of farmers Valentin and Larisa Pavlenko were found killed. The Russian military shot them dead in the basement of their own house, according to the Center for Journalistic Investigations..

Husband and wife were killed on the evening of August 23. Valentina - shot in the head, and under his body lay the murdered wife Larisa. Neighbors suggest that the invaders used a weapon with a silencer, since they did not hear the shots.

The last time Pavlenko was seen alive was around 20:00, an hour later the neighbors heard some noise in their yard, which soon ceased..

“Larisa and Valentin never left the yard during curfew, so we didn’t pay much attention to that noise. When we didn’t see them in our yard on the morning of August 24, we started to worry,” the neighbors of the dead say..

Fellow villagers entered the house, but did not find spouses there. And when they looked into the cellar, they saw the body of Valentin Pavlenko. People decided not to touch him, but first prepare the burial.

“Only after we went down to the basement to pull out the body of Valentine, we saw that he was hugging his dead wife covered with a blanket.. Apparently he covered her with his body when they were being shot.. The man was shot in the head, ”witnesses of the tragedy recall.

Spouses Pavlenko were engaged in small-scale farming. Despite the fact that invaders broke into their house at least three times, they refused to evacuate to the territory controlled by Ukraine - they did not want to leave their household.

They told their neighbors that they could escape the shelling in the cellar under their house..

“They had a really good cellar, well equipped. They spent the night in it.. He saved them from shelling, but not from the arrival of non-humans, ”the villagers say.