Ukrainian authorities have accused departing Russian forces of committing war crimes and leaving behind a “scene from a horror movie”. Bodies with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture lay scattered across a city on the outskirts of Kyiv after Russian soldiers withdrew from the area.
As images of the bodies, of people whom residents said were killed indiscriminately, began to emerge from Bucha, a slew of European leaders condemned the atrocities and called for tougher sanctions against Moscow. So far, the bodies of 410 civilians have been found in Kyiv-area towns that were recently retaken from Russian forces, Ukraine’s prosecutor-general Iryna Venediktova said.
Associated Press (AP) journalists saw the bodies of at least 21 people in various locations around Bucha, north-west of the capital. One group of nine, all in civilian clothes, were scattered around a site that residents said Russian troops used as a base.
