Nearly 300 people were buried in a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine, a suburb and commuter town outside Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, Bucha’s mayor said Saturday.
Anatoly Fedoruk, the mayor of Bucha, said the nearly destroyed streets have been littered with corpses of men and women. A 14-year-old boy was also among the dead, Fedoruk said. Many of the bodies had a white bandage, which meant they were unarmed.
US NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION OUTFITS UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS ON THE FRONT LINES
“In Bucha, we have already buried 280 people in mass graves,” Fedoruk told news agency Agence France Presse. “These are the consequences of Russian occupation.”
Ukrainian forces recaptured Bucha earlier this week, nearly a month after Russian forces alienated the town from the country’s capital. Kyiv has been a major focus of Russian aggression and a military target since the start of the invasion in February, though Russia has been unable to capture the city.
The Russian defense ministry announced it was scaling back its military assaults on Kyiv last week. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Ukrainians that Russian forces believed to be leaving were placing land mines around Ukrainian homes.
“It’s still not possible to return to normal life, as it used to be, even at the territories that we are taking back after the fighting,” Zelensky said in his nightly message, according to the Associated Press. “We need wait until our land is demined, wait till we are able to assure you that there won’t be new shelling.”
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Thousands of Ukrainians and Russians have been killed in the five weeks since Russia invaded the country. 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.
