Ukraine accused Russian soldiers of killing unarmed civilians after large numbers of dead bodies were reported to have been found in areas near Kyiv which have been retaken by Ukrainian forces.
Emine Dzheppar, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, said soldiers who had retaken Bucha, a small city 60km northwest of the capital, from Russian forces had reported “numerous civilians shot dead”.
“Some of the victims have their hands tied. Innocent victims. They didn’t deserve that,” she said.
In the nearby village of Motyzhyn Russian soldiers also “did terrible things”, she added. “Their cruelty is limitless. Before Ukrainian troops arrived, [the] Russian army killed as many civilians as possible. Inhuman. Terrible.
Speechless.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr
Zelensky, posted an image on Twitter appearing to show multiple dead bodies on the streets of Bucha. Some of the victims appeared to have their hands tied behind their backs.
“The bodies of people with tied hands, who were shot dead by [Russian] soldiers lie in the streets,” Podolyak said. “These people were not in the military. They had no weapons. They posed no threat. How many more such cases are happening right now in the occupied territories?”
Liz Truss, British foreign secretary, said she was “appalled by atrocities in Bucha and other towns in Ukraine” as the UK was collecting evidence of war crimes.
Allegations of war crimes perpetrated by Russian forces are emerging after Moscow started withdrawing its troops from the outskirts of Kyiv last week, instead shifting its war focus to the country’s east. Ukrainian authorities on Saturday claimed to have reclaimed all the Kyiv region after successfully defending the Ukrainian capital since Vladimir Putin started a full-scale invasion of the country on February 24.
People who visited the areas or spoke to residents in recent days said they saw corpses of civilians who appeared to have been shot, freshly dug graves, and other indications of suspected war crime Screenshot against humanity,