Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky cautioned the world on Monday that the apparent massacre of hundreds of civilians in Bucha may not be the worst of the atrocities committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.
As Ukrainian officials assess the damage and count the dead in recently liberated towns, there are reports of greater numbers of civilian causalities than in Bucha in other formerly Russian-occupied cities, Zelensky said in his nightly address on Monday.
“There is already information that the number of victims of the occupiers may be even higher in Borodyanka and some other liberated cities,” Zelensky said.
Ukraine’s top prosecutor on Monday also noted that Borodyanka, a town of 12,000 residents located 30 miles northwest of Kyiv, may have suffered a higher civilian death toll than Bucha.
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“In terms of human casualties, the worst situation is in Borodyanka. There’s a lot to process,” Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said on Monday.
Zelensky’s address comes just hours after he visited the town of Bucha, where dozens of bodies were found in the street, left behind after Russian soldiers retreated from the area. More than 300 civilians were killed by Russian forces in Bucha and dumped into mass graves, according to Ukrainian officials, with some showing signs of being shot at close range with their hands tied behind their backs.
The Ukrainian president said in his Monday address that the investigation into possible war crimes by Russian forces is just beginning in the Kyiv region and that casualty figures in Bucha will likely go up.
“We have just begun an investigation into all that the occupiers have done. At present, there is information about more than 300 people killed and tortured in Bucha alone. It is likely that the list of victims will be much larger when the whole city is checked. And this is only one city,” Zelensky said.
In his speech, Zelensky compared the atrocities now coming to light in parts of Ukraine to what the Nazis did during their occupation of Ukraine, but he warned that future war crimes committed in the country might be obscured.
“In many villages of the liberated districts of the Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy regions, the occupiers did things that the locals had not seen even during the Nazi occupation 80 years ago,” Zelensky said.
“Probably, now the occupiers will try to hide the traces of their crimes. They did not do this in Bucha when they retreated. But in another area, it is possible,” Zelensky added.
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The Ukrainian leader vowed in his speech that Ukraine will do “everything possible” to identify which Russian military units may have been responsible for war crimes and “who gave orders” to commit them.
“The time will come when every Russian will learn the whole truth about who of their fellow citizens killed, who gave orders, who turned a blind eye to the murders. We will establish all this and make it globally known,” Zelensky said.
