Russia leaves trail of brutalised civilians

Associated Press (AP) journalists in Bucha, a small city northwest of Kyiv, saw the bodies of at least nine people in civilian clothes who appeared to have been killed at close range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs.

The reporters also saw two bodies wrapped in plastic, bound with tape and thrown into a ditch.

Authorities said they were documenting evidence as Ukraine’s military reclaims territory and discovers indications of execution-style killings to add to their case for prosecuting Russian officials for war crimes.

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said scores of civilians who had been killed were found on the streets of Bucha and the Kyiv suburbs of Irpin and Hostomel in what looked like a “scene from a horror movie”.

Mr Arestovych said some people were shot in the head and had their hands bound, and some bodies showed signs of torture, rape and burning.

The capital city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said civilians were “shot with joined hands” and told German newspaper Bild that “what happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be described as genocide”.

A day earlier, AP journalists witnessed Ukrainian soldiers removing at least six bodies from a street in Bucha with cables in case the Russians had booby-trapped corpses with explosives before their withdrawal.

Local residents said the dead people were civilians killed without provocation, a claim that could not be independently verified.

Mr Klitschko called on other nations to immediately end Russian gas imports, saying they were funding the invasion of Ukraine, now in its 39th day.

“Not a penny should go to Russia anymore. That’s bloody money used to slaughter people. The gas and oil embargo must come immediately,” the mayor said.

Ukraine’s top diplomat also called for tougher sanctions on Russia over growing evidence of what he called a massacre of civilians in the suburbs of the Ukrainian capital.

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted on Sunday that the killings were “deliberate”, adding that “Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can”.