A year ago, Ukraine liberated the town of Butcher, north of Kiev.

Quickly, stories emerged of horrendous actions perpetuated by Russian troops.

There were reports of torture, rape, and mass killings.

The name Butcher has become synonymous with the cruelty of Russia's full-scale invasion.

I'm afraid when you look at what's happening in Butcher and what Putin has done, you know, doesn't look partial to genocide.

But for what we've gathered, this was a place where Ukrainians were taken to be tortured and possibly killed.

War crimes, you can see they were committing war crimes, and they were trying to hide it by burning everything.

This is a special episode of Ukraine the latest. I'm David Nols.

A few months after the liberation, I travelled to Butcher.

I wanted to get a sense of what life had been like under Russian occupation.

In this episode, I'll take you back with me on my trip.

If you were on this street, you didn't survive, you didn't really get away with with anything as the bombs came in and every single fence we walked past has got strapped on our damage.

We'll hear from the people of the town who saw the war come into their lives and still live with its horrific consequences.

When I arrived in Butcher, I met 52-year-old local resident Igor Savchenko.

We'd arranged to meet up through his daughter Katya, who I interviewed last spring after she had escaped from the town.

He gave me a tour of Butcher, where he's lived with his family since 2014.

They had moved to the city from Donetsk, which is still under Russian occupation, to escape the violence of the war in the east.

Igor's a Russian speaker.

And he started by showing me and my translator, Ilia, around his neighborhood.

Igor, thank you very much for inviting us to see Your Butcher.

You've just pointed out something quite interesting on the floor that you want us to talk about, want to tell us about. Can you do that?

We're in this place, so here is my house.

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