Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was visibly emotional Monday when he visited the ruins of the Ukrainian town Bucha, a suburb located northwest of the country’s capital city Kyiv.
Dozens of bodies lay on the street, left behind after Russian soldiers retreated from the area. Some of the bodies were shot at close-range, others had signs of torture reminiscent of the Soviet’s attack on Germany during World War II.
“These are war crimes and will be recognized by the world as genocide,” Zelensky said, according to the Daily Mail. “It’s very difficult to talk when you see what they’ve done here. The longer the Russian Federation drags out the meeting 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.”
Zelensky added that despite the devastating attacks from Russia, people were working together to make sure pets and animals were fed.
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Ukraine’s prosecutor general said more than 400 bodies of civilians have been recovered in Kyiv’s surrounding cities. The mayor of Motzyhn and her family were among the 20 civilians killed and buried in a mass grave. Other mass graves have been found in the surrounding cities, including one with more than 300 bodies in Bucha, according to Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk.
Stories also surfaced from survivors about Russian troops rounding up the elderly and other men to shoot them in front of their families. One woman said Russian forces shot her son in front of her, according to the Daily Mail. Others have claimed that soldiers killed civilians and then rolled over the bodies with tanks and that women have been raped by Russian soldiers. Footage of a Russian torture chamber has also been released, which includes one body where the victim was shot in the knee prior to their death, the Ukrainian military said.
World leaders have condemned the massacres in Ukraine, vowing increased strict sanctions against Russia and sending more supplies to Ukraine. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said justice would be served. A spokesman for Johnson added it was “clear Vladimir Putin crossed the threshold of barbarism some time ago.” Johnson also pledged to send special investigators to the International Criminal Court where they will gather evidence for a war crime tribunal.
Other world leaders have echoed the call for a tribunal and vowed to send investigators to gather evidence, including the United States. President Joe Biden called Putin a war criminal.
“This guy is brutal, and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous and everyone sees it,” Biden said.
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Russia has pulled two-thirds of its forces away from Kyiv and its suburbs and into Belarus, which has been an ally of Russia during the invasion. A senior U.S. official told the Daily Mail that the troops are expected to be refit, resupplied, and redeployed to somewhere else in Ukraine.
Four million Ukrainians have fled to other European countries under a refugee program activated by the European Union, which allows Ukrainians to enter and live in European countries without a permit for one year.
