Russian soldiers have been accused of carrying out war crimes after horrific evidence of hastily dug mass graves, rapes, and executions of civilians emerged.
World leaders have now demanded Putin face a war crimes prosecution, with US President Joe Biden saying he must face trial.
Ukrainian forces have found scores of victims dressed in civilian clothes, many of them with their hands bound and bullet wounds in their heads or chests.
Disturbing photos capture victims left on the street where they had fallen after being killed - while satellite photos show evidence of hastily dug mass graves.
Ukrainian prosecutors reported they have so far found 410 bodies so far in towns near Kyiv after they were recaptured from invaders.
The barbaric acts were compared to the atrocities of the Nazis, with President Zelensky accusing the Russian state of 'genocide'.
Reminiscent of the Second World War, 15 female prisoners of war were returned in a prisoner swap with their heads shaved.
Boris Johnson said the murders of innocent civilians were 'yet more evidence that Putin and his army are committing war crimes in Ukraine '.
The Human Rights Watch has now compiled a list of war crimes against civilians that includes rape, summary executions and serious violence.
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Rape
Last week, the Times reported how a woman, 29, was "raped for a week" in the eastern city.
Officials are investigating the gang-rape by Russian soldiers of a young mum whose husband was shot dead before her assault while her four-year-old son was in the next room.
Human Rights Watch also reported that a Russian soldier beat and repeatedly raped Olha [not her real name], a 31-year-old woman in Malaya Rohan, a village in the Kharkiv region.
Invaders entered the village on February 25, with one soldier breaking into the basement of a local school, where residents, mostly women and girls, were sheltering.
After making them line up, he ordered Olha to hand over her daughter - which she refused. He then took her aside to a classroom and made her give him oral sex, before raping her.
Recounting her ordeal, she said: “He told me to give him [oral sex]. The whole time he held the gun near my temple or put it into my face. Twice he shot at the ceiling and said it was to give me more ‘motivation.’”
He then raped her again at knifepoint - and cut off some of her hair. The next day, she scaped
Now council authorities are preparing a criminal complaint, which they plan to file with Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office.
Medical staff in Zaporizhzhia have treated young girls from Mariupol with injuries indicating they have suffered sexual assaults.
After the war started, there was such a spike in online searches for "Ukrainian women and sex" that it alerted security agencies, sparking concern that those fleeing could get caught up in trafficking.
The UK's ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, said: 'Rape is a weapon of war. Though we don't yet know the full extent of its use in Ukraine it's already clear it was part of Russia's arsenal.'
Civilians killings
Distressing photos capture hundreds of dead civilians. One photo shows at least 20 bodies, all in everyday clothes, with their hands bound behind their back - including a 14-year-old boy.
In Bucha, the mayor said entire families were killed trying to escape. He said: "All these people were shot, killed, in the back of the head.".
Hugh Williamson, of Human Rights Watch, said: 'The cases we documented amount to unspeakable, deliberate cruelty and violence against Ukrainian civilians.
'Rape, murder, and other violent acts against people in the Russian forces' custody should be investigated as war crimes.'
Russia has denied responsibility for killing civilians. Its defence ministry described the photos and videos as "another staged performance by the Kyiv regime."
Mass executions
Disturbing images have circulated worldwide after Russian forces retreated from the Burcha, near the capital.
Human Rights Watch compiled testimonies from survivors - although many were too disturbed to speak.
One witness in Bucha told how soldiers rounded up five men and shot one of them in the back of the head.
Russian forces forced the five men to kneel on the side of the road, pulled their T-shirts over their heads, and shot one of the men in the back of the head. “He fell [over],” the witness said, “and the women [present at the scene] screamed.”
In the same town, a school teacher told how Russian soldiers rounded up citizens and took them to a square.
She watched them shoot one of the four men they had forced to kneel on the ground, after which a commander shouted they were 'dirt'.
She said: "At one point they brought in one young man, then four more. The soldiers ordered them [to] take off their boots and jackets. They made them kneel on the side of the road.
"Russian soldiers pulled their T-shirts, from behind and over their heads. They shot one in the back of the head. He fell. Women screamed. The other four men were just kneeling there.
"The commander said to the rest of the people at the square: “Don’t worry. You are all normal – and this is dirt. We are here to cleanse you from the dirt.”
In Staryi Bykiv, east of Kyiv, a woman watched Russians round up her son and five other men before they were found dead the day after.
Their hands had been tied behind their backs, and any identifying documents stripped.
Lootings
The laws of war prohibit willful killing, rape and other sexual violence, torture, and inhumane treatment of captured combatants and civilians in custody. Pillage and looting are also prohibited.
But residents in Ukraine have described Russian forces taking food, firewood, clothing, and other items such as chainsaws, axes, and gasol
ine.
Taras Kuzio, a research fellow at human rights group the Henry Jackson Society, said: 'The Soviet looting of eastern Europe and Germany during World War Two is repeated in Ukraine.
"Soviet soldiers raped upwards of two million German women of all ages during World War Two. Russian soldiers are raping Ukrainian women and girls as young as ten. It is time for the West to stop Putin."
