As part of a general retreat of Russian forces north of Kyiv, as well as attacks on Russian formations by the Ukrainian military, Russian troops in the Bucha area retreated north. Ukrainian forces entered the city on 1 April.[14]
Reports
During the Russian offensive
According to the Ukrainian Kyiv Independent, Russian forces killed three unarmed Ukrainian civilians in a car on 4 March who were on their way back from having delivered food to a dog shelter.[15] At around 7:15 AM on 5 March, a pair of cars carrying two families trying to escape were spotted by Russian soldiers as the vehicles turned onto Chkalova Street. Russian forces proceeded to open fire at the convoy, killing a man in the second vehicle. The front car was hit by machine-gun fire, instantly killing two children and their mother.[16]
File:Bucha civilians massacred by Russian soldiers, c. April 2022 - 01.jpgBurned bodies in Bucha, 4 April 2022.
After the Russian withdrawal
Initial video footage following the Russian withdrawal was posted to social media on 1 April, showing mass civilian casualties.[17] According to the mayor of Bucha Anatoliy Fedoruk, "hundreds of Russian soldiers" were also among the bodies found in the region.[18] Subsequently, further evidence emerged which appeared to show war crimes committed by Russian forces while they occupied the region.[19] According to The Times, eighteen mutilated bodies of murdered men, women, and children were found in a basement. Footage released by the Ukrainian army appeared to show a torture chamber in the basement, with bodies having cut-off ears and teeth pulled out.[20] Corpses of other killed civilians were left in the road.[18]
According to Ukrainian media, photos indicated that Russians forces had singled out and killed Ukrainian civilian men in an organised fashion, with many bodies having been found with their hands tied behind their backs.[14] A report published by The Kyiv Independent also included a photo and information about one man and two or three naked women under a blanket whose bodies Russian soldiers tried to burn on the side of a road before fleeing;[14] Ukrainian officials said the women had been raped and the bodies burnt.[6]
Many of the victims appeared to have been going about their daily routines, carrying shopping bags.[3] Footage showed civilians dead with their hands bound. Other footage showed a dead man next to a bicycle.[21] Journalists entering the city themselves discovered the bodies of over a dozen people in civilian clothes.[22]CNN,[23] the BBC,[24] and AFP[25] released video documentation of numerous dead bodies of civilians in the streets and yards in Bucha, some of them with tied arms or legs. The BBC said of the 20 bodies on the street, some had been shot in the temple and some bodies had been run over by a tank.[26] On 2 April, an AFP reporter stated he had seen at least twenty bodies of civilians lying in the streets of Bucha, with two of the bodies having tied hands.[27][28] Fedoruk said that these individuals had all been shot in the back of the head.[22]
Testimonies from residents
Residents and the mayor of the city said that the victims had been killed by Russian troops. They also indicated many of the survivors had been hiding from the Russians in basements, too scared to come out. Some of them had no light or electricity for weeks, using candles for heating water and cooking. They came out of hiding only when it was clear the Russians had left, welcoming the arrival of Ukrainian troops.[3]
The Guardian cited eyewitness accounts who said that the Russian forces placed Ukrainian children on their vehicles while moving in order to use them as human shields.[29]
File:Bucha civilians massacred by Russian soldiers, c. April 2022 - 02.jpgPhoto distributed by the Ukrainian government purportedly showing bodies of civilians killed during the Russian occupation, 4 April 2022.
Residents, talking to Human Rights Watch (HRW) following the retreat of the Russian forces, described the treatment of people in the city during the short occupation: Russian soldiers went door to door, questioning people, destroying their possessions, and looting their clothes to wear themselves.[30] HRW heard reports that civilians were fired upon when leaving their homes for food and water, and would be ordered back into their homes by Russian troops, despite a lack of basic necessities such as water and heat due to the destruction of local infrastructure. Russian armed vehicles would arbitrarily fire into buildings in the city. Russian troops refused medical aid to injured civilians. A mass grave was dug for local victims, and the troops carried out extrajudicial executions.[30] A HRW spokesperson said that it had documented at least one "unmistakable case" of summary execution by Russian soldiers on 4 March.[14][31]
According to a local resident, Russian soldiers checked documents and killed those who had participated in the war in the Donbas region of Ukraine. The resident also said that Russian troops killed people with tattoos associated with the Nazis, but also with Ukrainian symbols. According to his account, in the last week of the occupation, Kadyrovites were killing every civilian they met.[32]
Satellite analyses
On 4 April, satellite images were provided to The New York Times by Maxar Technologies. The Times compared images to video evidence and concluded: "many of the civilians were killed more than three weeks ago, when Russia’s military was in control of the town." The images of Yablonska street show at least 11 "dark objects of similar size to a human body" appearing between March 9 and March 11. Their location precisely matches positions, where the bodies were filmed by a local council member, after Ukrainian forces reclaimed the town. A second video on the same street shows three bodies near bicycle and abandoned cars, which according to satellite imagery appeared between 20 and 21 March. The Times concluded that the analysis rebuts Russian claims about the killing of civilians happening after withdrawal of the Russian army.[33]
Reported casualties
The mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, said that at least 280 individuals from the city had to be buried in mass graves.[14][27][34][22] Local residents had to bury another 57 bodies in another mass grave.[14]
The exact number of people killed is unknown.[10] The town's mayor said at least 300 people had been found dead in the immediate aftermath of the massacre,[35] but in an interview with Reuters, deputy mayor Taras Shapravskyi said only 50 of the victims had been confirmed as having been extrajudicially executed.[36] The figure of 300 was later risen to 410.[37] Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that "the number of dead [in Bucha] is already higher than in Vukovar."[38]
Russia also requested a special meeting of the UN Security Council, of which it is one of five permanent members, to address what it alleged was a "heinous provocation of Ukrainian radicals".[41]Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, ordered an investigation into what he labelled a "Ukrainian provocation", accusing Ukrainian authorities of spreading "deliberately false information" about the actions of the Russian armed forces.[42]
Aftermath
Special forces of the National Police are cleaning up the city of Bucha, video by National Police of Ukraine
Ukraine
The Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba described it as a "deliberate massacre". He said Russia is "worse than Isis" and said Russian forces were guilty of murder, torture, rape and looting. Kuleba also urged the G7 countries to impose "devastating" additional sanctions.[43]
In an interview with Bild, Mayor of KyivVitali Klitschko said that "what happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be described as genocide" and accused Russian PresidentVladimir Putin of war crimes.[44] Zelenskyy visited the area on 4 April 2022, to show reporters and the world the reported atrocities in Bucha.[45]
Russia
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the massacre another "fake attack" used against Russia, saying it had been staged.[46] The Russian Defence Ministry's Telegram channel reposted a report stating that Russian forces had not targeted civilians during the battle. According to the statement, a massacre could not have been covered up by the Russian military, and the mass grave in the city was filled with victims of Ukrainian airstrikes. The Ministry said it had analyzed a video purporting to show the bodies of dead civilians in Bucha, and said the corpses filmed were moving. This claim was investigated by the BBC's Moscow Department, which concluded there was no evidence the video had been staged.[47]Bellingcat favourably cited BBC's account and further put into question the timeline presented by Russian government sources.[17]
International organisations
The massacre was condemned by the President of the EU Council, Charles Michel, who said he was "shocked by haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army in Kyiv" and promised the EU would assist Ukraine and human rights groups in collecting evidence for use in international courts.[48] NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg similarly expressed his horror at the targeting of civilians.[49] UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his shock at the images and called for an independent investigation which would ensure effective accountability.[50][51]
Countries
Leaders of neighbouring and nearby European countries condemned the attack. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas compared the images of the event to those from mass killings committed by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and called for details to be gathered and perpetrators brought to court,[52] while Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger compared the massacre with the "apocalypse of war in former Yugoslavia".[53] Moldovan President Maia Sandu called the event "crimes against humanity" and declared 4 April 2022 a day of national mourning in memory of all Ukrainians killed in the Russian-Ukrainian war.[54]
Further abroad, Liz Truss, the British foreign secretary, said that she was "appalled by atrocities in Bucha and other towns in Ukraine" and that "reports of Russian forces targeting innocent civilians are abhorrent". She also said that those responsible would be held to account.[58]Joe Biden, the President of the United States, called for Putin to be tried for war crimes. Biden also stated that he supported additional sanctions on Russia.[59][60]
The events also lead to Germany expelling 40 Russian diplomats.[61] Lithuania similarly expelled the Russian ambassador and closed a Russian consulate in the city of Klaipėda.[62]
Russian Armed Forces[a]
