KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces carried out punishing strikes against key Ukrainian cities on Wednesday, brushing aside mounting world outrage over the execution-style killings of civilians even as Washington and its Western allies moved to impose sharp new sanctions against Moscow.
In suburbs around the capital, Kyiv, Ukrainian investigators pressed ahead with the grim task of documenting evidence of war crimes in the form of mass graves and mutilated bodies as Ukrainian troops and mine clearers worked to defuse booby traps and explosives left behind by retreating Russian forces.
Ukrainian officials accused Russia of trying to cover up war crimes in other occupied areas, saying that Moscow is now aware that haphazard efforts in the Kyiv region had left an abundance of evidence behind.
