Bucha: Bodies strewn across street in Kyiv suburb as Ukraine accuses Russia of
The hands of one man are tied behind his back with a piece of white cloth. Another man lies alone, tangled up in a bicycle by a grassy bank. A third man lies in the middle of the road, near the charred remains of a burned-out car.
The town of Bucha has endured five weeks of near-constant firefights. Now officials and human rights groups are blaming the civilian deaths on the departed Russian forces.
“Corpses of executed people still line the Yabluska street in Bucha. Their hands are tied behind their backs with white ‘civilian’ rags, they were shot in the back of their heads. So you can imagine what kind of lawlessness they perpetrated here,” Bucha mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk told Reuters on Saturday.
Asked during an appearance Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” if Russia was carrying out genocide in his country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Indeed. This is genocide.”
“The elimination of the whole nation, and the people. We are the citizens of Ukraine. We have more than 100 nationalities. This is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities,” he said.
CNN has not been able to independently confirm the details around the men’s deaths.
The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed the extensive footage was “fake,” saying “not a single local resident suffered from any violent actions” during Russia’s occupation of Bucha. “In the settlements of the Kiev region, Russian military personnel delivered and issued 452 tons of humanitarian aid to civilians,” it said in a statement.
A separate statement claimed the footage was staged. “Stories about Bucha appeared in several foreign media outlets at once, which looks like a planned media campaign,” the statement said. “Taking into account that the troops left the city on March 30, where was the footage for four days? Their absence only confirms the fake.”
The Russian government has consistently responded to allegations of civilian casualties inflicted by Russian forces with blanket denials. After the Russian air force bombed a maternity hospital on March 9, Russian officials attempted to cast doubt on widespread media reports, with one Russian diplomat accusing a victim of the bombing — a woman who escaped from the bombing, bloodied and still pregnant — of being an actor and not a real victim.
Mass grave
The toll of the Russian invasion was apparent at a mass grave in Bucha. People cried as they attempted to locate the bodies of lost loved ones at a grave located in the grounds of the Church of St. Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints on Sunday, according to a CNN team at the scene.
Bucha residents told CNN that bodies were first buried in the grave in the first few days of the war. They believe 150 people are buried in the site, many of whom were civilians killed in the fighting around Bucha.
CNN saw at least a dozen bodies in body bags piled inside the grave. Some were already partially covered.
The mayor of Bucha said in public remarks Saturday that up to 300 victims could…
Read More: Bucha: Bodies strewn across street in Kyiv suburb as Ukraine accuses Russia of