Current:Home > MarketsNew film honors "angel" who saved over 200 lives during Russian occupation of Bucha -FutureFinance
New film honors "angel" who saved over 200 lives during Russian occupation of Bucha
View
Date:2025-04-15 06:50:17
The city of Bucha became synonymous with massacre after Russia's army killed more than 1,000 civilians in the city during a one-month occupation after capturing the region in the first weeks of the war in Ukraine.
Amid the horror, one man's heroism saved hundreds. As the war rages on, his heroism is being memorialized with a film.
Konstantin Gudauskas has been called an angel of salvation. Thanks to a random stroke of luck, Gudauskas was a citizen of Kazakhstan who had been granted political asylum in Ukraine years ago. That meant that he kept his freedom of movement, even during the war.
He used that good fortune and freedom to drive 203 Ukrainians out of Russian-occupied territory.
The film shows his travails, which included navigating Russian checkpoints and witnessing atrocities while delivering people from evil.
"For me it was hell," Gudauskas said. "I saw a lot of death. There were times I'd come to evacuate a family and they would be dead. I would scream to God: 'Why did you send me here? If my life is needed, I have to save lives.'"
Gudauskas said he buried more than 70 bodies himself, but is thankful he saved more, including famed Ukrainian composer Ihor Poklad and his wife, Svetlana Poklad. The couple hid in their cellar for two weeks as Russian troops passed outside.
"We didn't have any water, no lights, no gas, but we adapted. The only thing that was hard to adapt to were the shellings, the missiles," said Svetlana Poklad.
When Gudauskas arrived, Svetlana Poklad said she felt "unreal happiness."
"I called him an angel," she said. "He's an angel to everyone he saved."
Gudauskas' has now celebrated holidays and birthdays that might have been impossible without his bravery, forging a family with those he rescued. One pregnant woman he saved even named her son after him.
"I have no children of my own," Gudauskas said. "But I have got a lot of children that I gained during the war."
- In:
- Bucha
- Ukraine
- Russia
Ramy Inocencio is a foreign correspondent for CBS News based in London and previously served as Asia correspondent based in Beijing.
TwitterveryGood! (6332)
Related
- The 401(k) millionaires club keeps growing. We'll tell you how to join.
- With Lionel Messi in doubt, Chicago Fire offer credit to fans for sold-out game
- 'Heavy hearts' after homecoming queen contender collapses and dies on high school football field
- The $22 Cult-Fave Beauty Product Sofia Franklyn Always Has in Her Bag
- Bodycam footage shows high
- Any job can be a climate solutions job: Ask this teacher, electrician or beauty CEO
- FIFA set to approve letting Russian youth soccer national teams return to competition
- Contract dispute nearly cost Xander Schauffele his Ryder Cup spot, according to his father
- A Mississippi company is sentenced for mislabeling cheap seafood as premium local fish
- Wednesday's emergency alert may be annoying to some. For abuse victims, it may be dangerous
Ranking
- Current, future North Carolina governor’s challenge of power
- US adds another option for fall COVID vaccination with updated Novavax shots
- MATCHDAY: Defending champion Man City at Leipzig. Newcastle hosts PSG in Champions League
- Gunbattle at hospital in Mexico kills 4, including doctor caught in the crossfire: Collateral damage
- Gen. Mark Milley's security detail and security clearance revoked, Pentagon says
- Philippine boats breach a Chinese coast guard blockade in a faceoff near a disputed shoal
- 3 Filipino fishermen die in South China Sea after their boat is hit by a passing commercial vessel
- UK police open a corporate manslaughter investigation into a hospital where a nurse killed 7 babies
Recommendation
2025 'Doomsday Clock': This is how close we are to self
'Made for this moment': Rookie star Royce Lewis snaps Twins' historic losing streak
Ozone hole over Antarctica grows to one of the largest on record, scientists say
Horoscopes Today, October 3, 2023
A Mississippi company is sentenced for mislabeling cheap seafood as premium local fish
The CFPB On Trial
'Our Flag Means Death' still shivers our timbers
Philippine boats breach a Chinese coast guard blockade in a faceoff near a disputed shoal