Vladimir Putin’s invading troops are reportedly on a deliberate campaign of terror, rape, murder and torture in Bucha, Ukraine.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, one of the US’ most senior officials claimed today that Russia was on a “deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape”.
His claims came as a number of horrific accounts emerged from Bucha and other towns in Kyiv Oblast about Russian soldiers slaughtering innocents.
Civilians were found in the road with their hands bound before they had been shot and mass graves of half-buried bodies were uncovered.
Videos released by Ukrainian troops showed them driving through the town, having to slalom around dead bodies left behind by retreating Russian soldiers.
Bucha’s mayor estimated over 300 people had been slaughtered.
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Speaking to reporters as he flew to Brussels, he said: “As this Russian tide is receding from parts of Ukraine, the world is seeing the death and destruction left in its wake.
“What we've seen in Bucha is not the random act of a rogue unit. It's a deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities.
“The reports are more than credible. The evidence is there for the world to see.”
In a similar warning about the worsening crimes committed by Russian forces, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that Ukrainians were being taken to “filtration camps” in Russia.
She added the FSB agents were taking away passports, ID and mobile phones so Ukrainians couldn’t leave or contact family.
She said: “I do not need to spell out what these so-called filtration camps are reminiscent of. It's chilling and we cannot look away.
“Every day we see more and more how little Russia respects human rights.”
Blinken said the US, along with other nations, was working to gather evidence to help the Ukrainian prosecutor general and UN Human Rights Council in its investigations.
On Monday, US President Joe Biden called for Vladimir Putin to face trial for war crimes for the atrocities in Bucha.
Biden told reporters: “He is a war criminal. But we have to gather the information. We have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue to fight and we have to get all the detail. This guy is brutal and what's happening in Bucha is outrageous and everyone's seen it.”
He added that he was seeking more sanctions, but didn’t think what happened in Bucha could constitute genocide.
Ukraine’s prosecutor-general said that the bodies of 410 civilians, many with bound hands and close-rung gunshot wounds, have been recovered from the towns around Kyiv, following the Russian withdrawal.
Vladislav Kozlovsky returned to Bucha at the beginning of the war to care for his mother and grandmother.
He told The Telegraph how two men he knew tried to escape through an abandoned glass factory but were found out by Russian soldiers.
One had his cheek sliced out before being shot in the heart and the other was shot in the back of the head.
Another resident, Volodymyr Pilhuskyi, told the paper how his neighbour was taken away because his trousers were deemed “suspicious”.
He was tortured before being killed and Mr Pilhutskyi said they found burn marks on his body.
Ukrainian armed forces also claim to have uncovered a Russian torture chamber inside a children’s hospital.
The hospital was being used as a makeshift barracks and the bodies of five men were found in the basement.
They had been shot to death, with their hands tied behind their backs and some of them tortured.
Haunting images taken by Ukrainian prosecutors show the bodies of dead men laying on the ground, surrounded by pools of dried blood.
At least one appears to be shot through the kneecap.
Drone footage has also revealed Russian tanks open firing on a cyclist in Bucha.
Interviews with Human Rights Watch have hinted at the extent of Russia’s indiscriminate killings in Bucha and elsewhere in Ukraine.
Locals claimed Russia would hurl smoke grenades into basements and other hiding places before shooting at Ukrainians who ran.
A month ago, on March 5, Russian soldiers allegedly went door-to-door and rounded up Ukrainians hiding.
They brought them, mostly women and children, to a parking lot and left them waiting as the weather got colder and colder.
Then, they brought men forward and stripped them down before making them use their shirts as execution cloths, before shooting one in the head and threatening the rest.
The commander told the rest of the people in the square: “Don't worry. You are all normal – and this is dirt. We are here to cleanse you from the dirt.”
Human Rights Watch were told by one woman that she was raped by a Russian soldier in a classroom in Kharkiv.
He held a gun to her head as he forced her to perform sexual acts and cut her multiple times with a knife.
