On Irpin Road, northwest of Kiev, a long car is parked on the side of the road – some puzzled by bullet holes and burned or burned by artillery fire. Many have temporary signs saying “baby” on the windscreen; Some drivers left children’s seats in the back of their cars, suggesting they fled on foot after blowing up a nearby bridge.
Ukraine’s military commander in charge of protecting the area, Ihr Litviniewicz, said he had seen bodies of civilians on the ground in the town of Bucha, a few kilometers north of Irpin, which had been under Russian occupation until last week.
“There were bodies of people tied up. We brought 20 people from Bucha yesterday,” he said. Litvinuek estimates that around 300 people may have suffered the same fate in the area between Bucha and Irpin.
After Russian troops withdrew from the vicinity of Kiev over the weekend, Ukrainian troops, human rights investigators and journalists fled the restive settlements in the rest of Ukraine for more than a month. As they did, they took stock of broken power lines, wrecked vehicles and the bodies of more than 200 people, indicating widespread atrocities perpetrated by the invaders. Temporary graves mark the park grounds.
Ukraine’s parliamentary commissioner for human rights, Lyudmila Denisova, said on Sunday that retreating Russians had dug entrances to playgrounds and buildings.
“The dead civilians are lying in the yard, near the house, under the street,” he said in a comment on the social media site Telegram. Some have their hands tied behind their backs and there are signs of torture on their bodies.
Denisova said the Ukrainian military had found the bodies of 280 civilians, some of whom had been shot dead. The international community has expressed grief and anger as pictures of the body spread on the internet.
European Council President Charles Michel said he was shocked to see images of atrocities committed by the Russian military, adding that more EU sanctions would be aimed at Moscow. In Ukraine, Mikhail Podoliak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, says the Kyiv region is “the hell of the 21st century.”
“The worst crime of Nazism has returned to Europe,” he said in a tweet in response to the Kremlin’s propaganda argument that Ukraine needed “de-Naziizing”.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has tried to deny the allegations, describing them as “another product of the Kyiv regime for the Western media.” A statement said no local residents had been subjected to any violence during the military occupation.
Mine clearing is underway in the northern part of Booker, where, according to Litvinuek, soldiers used some residents as human shields. “It simply came to our notice then [what happened]”She is OK.
Pavlo, a 37-year-old resident, was riding his bike in central Irpin on Sunday because no other transportation was available due to a lack of petrol. He said the local mother of the two teenage daughters had been raped by Russian soldiers and “they released her soon after.”
Human rights activists say the killings appear to be part of a broader pattern of abuse by Russian troops in areas under their control since the start of the war in late February, indicating that more atrocities will follow.
Human Rights Watch said on Sunday that it had documented several incidents of unlawful violence in cities around Kiev and in the northern Chernihiv and eastern Kharkiv regions, which were described as “apparent war crimes”, including brief executions and rape.
The probe has sparked growing calls for Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials to be held accountable. German Chancellor Olaf Schulz demanded that international bodies, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, be given access to the area to independently document atrocities.
“The perpetrators and those who perpetrated these crimes must be brought to justice,” he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron called Bucharest’s pictures “unbearable” and said Russia “must respond to this crime.”
The International Criminal Court launched an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine on February 26, just four days after the attack – an unusually quick move.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba on Sunday called on the ICC and other international bodies to come to Bucha and other cities and towns in the Kyiv region to gather evidence of what he described as Russia’s war crimes and crimes against humanity. He said his ministry had sent a formal request to the ICC.
“We are still collecting and searching for the bodies, but the number has already gone into the hundreds,” Kuleba said in an interview published on his ministry’s website. “They killed civilians while they were there and when they were leaving these villages and towns.”
Former Ukrainian Deputy Prosecutor-General and expert on international criminal law Ginduz Mamedov said he was concerned that the evidence he called “war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly genocide” could be upset if immediate action was not taken. In investigative and forensic equipment such as mobile DNA labs and drones.
Ukrainian officials have stepped up their appeal for military assistance to defend their country. “The only way to stop this is to help Ukraine expel the Russians as soon as possible,” Kuleba said in a tweet. “Partners know our needs. Tanks, warplanes, heavy aircraft defense systems. Provide them now. ”
Additional report by Guy Chajan in Berlin
