Ukrainian officials say that they have discovered a “torture room” in a town seized from retreating Russian troops.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office posted graphic images of the room in Bucha and alleged that civilians were tortured and killed inside it during Moscow’s occupation.
The United States and European countries have condemned and pledged to punish Russia over the killing of civilians in the town near Kyiv, where a mass grave was discovered.
The bodies of civilians, who had ben shot with their hands tied behind their backs before being dumped on the street, were also found.
“Soldiers of the Russian Federation armed forces tortured unarmed civilians and then killed them,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a Facebook post.
It also shared pictures of a number of Ukrainians that it says were killed in the room.
The Independent has not verified the claims.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Bucha on Monday and said that the killing of civilians had made it harder to negotiate a ceasefire with Vladimir Putin.
“These are war crimes and will be recognised by the world as genocide,” said Mr Zelensky, who was wearing body armour.
“It’s very difficult to talk when you see what they’ve done here,” he added.
“The longer the Russian Federation drags out the negotiating process, the worse it is for them and for this situation and for this war.”
“We know of thousands of people killed and tortured, with severed limbs, raped women and murdered children.”
Ukrainian officials also took journalists, including Reuters, to the basement of what they described as a summer residence for children and showed them the bodies of the five dead men, who had their hands tied behind their backs.
They said that all five had been killed by Russian forces.
“They were shot, shot either in their head or in their chest. They were tortured before they were killed,” said Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry.
“Now we are investigating this and we show (it) to the international press.”
He claimed that the Russian soldiers had set up camp inside the building and stayed there for three weeks before retreating.
