Ukrainian and European officials expressed outrage on Sunday at what they said were atrocities committed by Russian forces near Kyiv before they withdrew from the region to focus their attacks elsewhere.
Authorities said they were documenting evidence as Ukraine’s military reclaims territory and discovers indications of execution-style slayings to add to their case for for prosecuting Russian officials for war crimes.
The mayor of Bucha, a town 37 km (23 miles) northwest of the capital, said on Saturday that 300 residents had been killed during a month-long occupation by the Russian army. Victims were reported to be seen by AP/Reuters in graves and still lying on the streets.
An aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that Ukrainian troops had found the bodies of women who had been molested and set alight as well as the bodies of local officials and children.
"There are murdered men whose bodies bear signs of torture. Their hands were tied, and they were killed by shots to the back of the head," Oleksiy Arestovych told Ukrainian television.
"Shocked by news of atrocities committed by Russian forces. EU assists Ukraine in documenting war crimes," European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Twitter, adding all cases needed to be pursued by the International Court of Justice.
On Sunday morning, Russian forces launched an airstrike on the Black Sea port of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, sending up clouds of dark smoke that veiled parts of the city. The Russian military said the targets were an oil processing plant and fuel depots around Odesa, which is Ukraine’s largest port and home to its navy.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it hoped a team of nine staffers and three vehicles it sent Saturday to help evacuate residents would reach Mariupol on Sunday but cautioned, “The situation on the ground is volatile and subject to rapid changes.”
As his country’s troops retook territory north of the capital of Kyiv from departing Russian troops, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on all Ukrainians to do whatever they could “to foil the enemy’s tactics and weaken its capabilities.”
“Peace will not be the result of any decisions the enemy makes somewhere in Moscow. There is no need to entertain empty hopes that they will simply leave our land. We can only have peace by fighting,” Zelenskyy said late Saturday.
Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s Western allies believe Russia has shifted its forces from the capital region and the country’s north in order to build strength in the east and south. The Ukrainian leader again urged the West to supply his military with warplanes and more anti-missile systems.
-Reuters/AP