A man’s hands are tied behind his back with a piece of white cloth. Another man is lying alone, entangled in a bicycle, on the edge of the grass. A third man is lying in the middle of the road near the charred remains of a burnt-out car.
The city of Buka has been facing continuous arson for almost five weeks. Now officials and rights groups are blaming the late Russian military for civilian deaths.
“The bodies of those killed in Yabluska street in Bucha are still lined up. His hands were tied behind his back with white ‘civilian’ rags, shot in the back of his head. So you imagine the kind of chaos they have created here.” Buka Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk told Reuters on Saturday.
Ukraine’s presidential adviser Oleksey Erestovich said on Sunday that reports coming from cities in the Kyiv region revealed a “post-apocalyptic picture” of life under Russian occupation.
“This is a special appeal aimed at drawing the attention of the world to those war crimes, crimes against humanity, which were committed by Russian troops in Buka, Irpin and Hostomel,” Erestovich said. “These are free cities, a picture of horror movies, a picture of a post-apocalypse.”
“Victims of these war crimes have already been found, including those who tried to burn raped women, killed local government officials, killed children, killed elderly people, murdered men, many of them Were tied with hands, marks of torture and shot in the back. . Headache, attempted robbery, gold, valuables, rugs, washing machines. This, of course, was the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office and law enforcement agencies and international will be taken into account by the criminal courts.
CNN has not been able to independently confirm the details of the men’s deaths. CNN has requested comment from the Russian Defense Ministry regarding allegations of civilian killings in the Kyiv region and other parts of Ukraine.
After Human Rights Watch (HRW) announced that it had documented allegations of war crimes in the occupied territories of Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv regions, evidence of apparent atrocities emerged in Buka.
The rights group said on Sunday that the charges included “repeated rape, two counts of summary execution, one count of six men, one man, and unlawful violence and intimidation against civilians between February 27 and March 14.” Other cases are included. 2022.”
In Buka, Russian forces “besieged five men and briefly killed one of them” on 4 March, HRW wrote. An eyewitness told the rights group that soldiers forced men to kneel in the street and pull their shirts over their heads before shooting a man in the back of the head.
The HRW also alleges that on February 27, six people were arrested and later put to death in the village of Stary Bykiv in the Chernihiv region.
The victim told HRW that on March 13, a Russian soldier repeatedly raped a woman in a school where she was staying with her family in Malaya Rohan, a village in the Kharkiv region. “She said he beat her and slit her face, neck and hair with a knife,” HRW wrote. The woman fled to Kharkiv the next day, “where she was able to receive medical treatment and other services.”
And in the village of Vorzel, 31 miles northwest of Kyiv, Russian soldiers “thrown a smoke grenade into a basement, then shot a woman and a 14-year-old child as they exited the basement where they had taken refuge ,” said HRW. ,
Hugh Williamson, HRW’s director of Europe and Central Asia, said in the statement: “The cases we have documented are those of unspeakable, intentional cruelty and violence against citizens of Ukraine.” “Rape, murder and other violent acts against people in the custody of the Russian military should be investigated as war crimes.”
CNN has not independently confirmed the details of the HRW report, and has requested comment from the Russian Defense Ministry.
European Union Council President Charles Michel vowed new sanctions on Russia, saying in a post on Twitter that he was “shocked by the appalling images of atrocities perpetrated by Russian forces in the Kyiv Free Zone #Buka massacre.”
The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell also expressed his shock at the “news of atrocities committed by Russian forces”.
,[The] The European Union assists Ukraine in documenting war crimes. @CIJ_ICJ. All matters to be followed by [the International Court of Justice]Borrell tweeted on Sunday. “The EU will continue to provide strong support to Ukraine.”
CNN’s Tara John and Nathan Hodge reported from Lviv. Johnny Hallam reported from Atlanta. Amy Cassidy in London and James Frater from Brussels told.