Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
ABC News
ABC News
National

Footage appears to show Russian armoured vehicle firing on cyclist in Ukrainian city of Bucha

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: Drone footage reveals Russian forces firing on cyclist in Bucha

Footage has emerged of what appears to be a Russian armoured vehicle firing at a cyclist in the town of Bucha.

Warning: some viewers may find this content disturbing.

Ukraine has accused Russia of war crimes during its occupation of the town, to the north-west of the capital Kyiv.

The drone footage appears to show an armoured vehicle, likely to be a BMD-2, marked with a white 'V' on the side, firing at an individual on a bicycle.

Russian military vehicles used during the conflict in Ukraine have been pictured with either a 'V' or 'Z' marked on them.

The ABC has verified the location of the footage as being in Bucha and there is no evidence that it has been edited, other than to circle the cyclist.

Additional footage seen by the ABC shows a corpse lying next to a bicycle in the location where it was fired upon.

The ABC cannot verify when the video was taken.

Evidence of what appears to be intentional killings of civilians in Bucha and other towns before Russian forces withdrew from the outskirts of Kyiv has drawn condemnation.

In an address to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said civilians in towns around Kyiv had been tortured, shot in the back of the head, thrown down wells, blown up with grenades in their apartments and crushed to death by tanks while in cars.

Ukrainian forces have discovered a number of bodies in Bucha's streets.  (ABC News: Phil Hemingway)

Those who carried out the killings and those who gave the orders "must be brought to justice immediately for war crimes" in front of a tribunal similar to the one established at Nuremberg after World War II, he said.

"But we don't have a choice — the fate of our land and of our people is being decided," he said.

"We know what we are fighting for. And we will do everything to win."

Russia has insisted its troops have committed no war crimes.

Moscow's UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said "not a single local person" suffered from violence while Bucha was under Russian control.

Reiterating Kremlin comments, he said scenes of bodies in the streets were "a crude forgery" staged by the Ukrainians.

Associated Press journalists in Bucha counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes and interviewed Ukrainians who told of witnessing atrocities.

High-resolution satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed many of the bodies laid in the open for weeks while Russian forces were in the town.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said images from Bucha revealed "not the random act of a rogue unit" but "a deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities." He said the reports of atrocities were "more than credible."

The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court at The Hague opened an investigation a month ago into possible war crimes in Ukraine.

AP/ABC

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.