As Russian troops retreat and Moscow focuses its attacks elsewhere, Ukrainian troops are discovering brutalized bodies and widespread wreckage in the capital’s outskirts, including missile strikes Sunday that targeted gasoline and ammunition depots in southern and eastern Ukraine.
At least nine persons in civilian clothing appeared to have been killed at close range, according to reporters in Bucha, a small city northwest of Kyiv. At least two of them were bound to their backs with their hands tied behind their backs. Two victims were also seen wrapped in plastic, fastened with tape, and tossed into a ditch, according to the reporters.
As Ukraine’s military reclaims land and discovers evidence of execution-style slayings, authorities said they were documenting material to add to their case for prosecuting Russian leaders for war crimes.
Hundreds of slain people were discovered on the streets of Bucha and the Kyiv districts of Irpin and Hostomel, according to Oleksiy Arestovych, an assistant to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Some persons were shot in the head and had their hands bound, according to Arestovych, while some bodies bore evidence of torture, rape, and burning.
Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, stated residents were “shot with joined hands” and that “what happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be regarded as genocide,” according to the German tabloid Bild.
Reporters had seen the Ukrainian military carefully remove at least six bodies from a Bucha street with cables the day before, in case the Russians had booby-trapped the remains with explosives before their retreat. Locals said the victims were civilians who were slain without provocation, although this assertion could not be independently verified.
Klitschko urged other countries to immediately halt Russian gas supplies, claiming that they were subsidizing Ukraine’s ongoing invasion, which is currently on its 39th day.
“No money should be sent to Russia anymore.” That’s blood money, and it’s been used to murder people. The gas and oil embargo must be implemented immediately, according to the mayor.
The “haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian troops” in the capital region stunned Charles Michel, president of the European Council, on Twitter. According to Michel, who pledged “more EU sanctions” on Russia, the EU and non-governmental groups were cooperating in the endeavor to preserve evidence of war crimes.
Russian forces launched an attack on Odesa, a Black Sea port in southern Ukraine, on Sunday morning, sending up clouds of dark smoke that shrouded parts of the city. The targets, according to the Russian military, were an oil processing plant and fuel stockpiles in and around Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port and home to its navy.
“I live on the eighth floor of the eight-story structure.” Russia conducted an attack at 6 a.m., and this piece of rock fell on my house,” claimed Maiesienko Ilia, who lives near one of the facilities hit.
Ukraine’s air defense fired down some missiles before they impacted Odesa, according to the city council. The attack resulted in no injuries, according to Ukrainian military spokesman Vladyslav Nazarov.
Mariupol, a tiny port on the Sea of Azov to the east, remained cut off from the rest of the country as Russian and Ukrainian troops battled for control of the beleaguered city. About 100,000 civilians, or about a fourth of the prewar population of 430,000, are thought to be stranded there with little or no food, water, fuel, and medicine.
“The situation on the ground is dynamic and vulnerable to rapid changes,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said, adding that it anticipated a team of nine personnel and three cars deployed Saturday to help evacuate civilians would arrive in Mariupol on Sunday.
Russia committed days ago to enable safe passage from the city, which has been the location of some of the worst attacks and suffering, according to Ukrainian authorities, but such accords have repeatedly broken down due to continuous shelling.
Mariupol is located in the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbas region, where Russian-backed rebels have been fighting the Ukrainian army for the past eight years. Its acquisition would open up a direct land link between Russia and Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukraine claimed it had gotten a leg up elsewhere in the country, despite Mariupol being fully in Russia’s crosshairs. President Volodymyr Zelensky urged all Ukrainians to do everything they could “to foil the enemy’s methods and damage its capabilities” as his country’s military retook the area north of Kyiv from fleeing Russian troops.
“Any decisions made by the enemy somewhere in Moscow will not end in peace.” It’s pointless to hold out hope that they’ll simply depart our country. “The only way to achieve peace is to fight,” Zelensky declared late Saturday.
Russia has transferred its soldiers from the capital region and the country’s north to the east and south, according to Zelensky and Ukraine’s Western allies. The Ukrainian president urged the West to provide his military with more warplanes and anti-missile defense systems.
“Every Russian missile that hits our cities, every bomb that is thrown on our people, on our children, just adds black paint to the history that will define everyone on whom the decision – whether or not to help Ukraine with modern weapons – was based,” Zelensky added.
While the battlefield transformed little changed for many Ukrainians after five weeks into a war that has forced over 4 million people to flee the country as refugees.
Over the last day, Russian artillery and tanks fired over 20 strikes on Ukraine’s second-largest city and its suburbs in the country’s northeast, according to the regional governor in Kharkiv. A missile strike on the city of Lozovo injured four people, according to Governor Oleh Synyehubov, and Russian tanks bombarded a hospital in the town of Balakliia.
As they depart from the area around Kyiv, Russian troops, according to Zelensky, have left mines around homes, abandoned equipment, and even the remains of the dead. Although those statements could not be independently verified Ukrainian troops appeared to be paying attention to the warning.
In the aftermath of the Russian redeployment, indications of severe fighting were everywhere in the towns and cities surrounding Kyiv. Armored vehicles from both armies were strewn over the streets and fields, along with military equipment.
Ukraine’s military was stationed at the entrance of Antonov Airport in the Hostomel suburb, demonstrating control of the runway that Russia attempted to storm in the early days of the conflict.
The Mriya, one of the largest planes ever built, lay damaged inside the facility beneath a hangar pocked with holes from the February attack.
Moscow’s negotiators informally agreed to most of a draft proposal discussed during face-to-face negotiations in Istanbul this week, according to the leader of Ukraine’s team in talks with Russia, but no written confirmation has been issued.
Davyd Arakhamia, a Ukrainian negotiator, said on Ukrainian television that he thought the deal was far enough along that the two countries’ presidents could meet to discuss it. However, Vladimir Medinksy, Russia’s main negotiator in negotiations with Ukraine, was quoted by Interfax as saying it’s too early to talk of a meeting between the two leaders.
Ukraine’s government cautioned that Russia’s focus on eastern Ukraine did not guarantee Kyiv and other cities would not be targeted in the future. In his evening message on Saturday, Zelensky urged his people to do whatever they can to preserve the country’s survival, even if it means doing basic things like expressing kindness to one another.
“There are no trivial things when a nation is defending itself in a war of annihilation when it is a question of life or death for millions,” the president stated. “… And everyone may contribute to a triumph for all.”
