A new grave with dozens of civilian Ukrainians was found on Saturday in Buzova, a liberated village near the capital Kyiv that for weeks was occupied by Russian forces, a local official said.
The mass graves being found in Ukraine are reminiscent of the graves left by Nazi soldiers during World War II, with the difference being that this time, the atrocities are being carried out by Russian soldiers.
Taras Didych, head of the Dmytrivka community that includes Buzova and several other nearby villages, told Ukrainian television that the bodies were found in a ditch near a petrol station. The number of dead is yet to be confirmed.
“Now, we are returning to life, but during the occupation, we had our ‘hotspots,” many civilians died,” Didych said. Bodies had also been discovered in a dozen shelled cars on a major road that goes through Buzova, he added.
On Friday, in Bucha, a town just north of Kyiv, forensic investigators began exhuming a mass grave – and laying out wrapped in black plastic, the bodies of civilians who officials say were killed while Russian troops occupied the town.
Ruslan Kravchenko, from the prosecutor’s office in Bucha, said they had exhumed 20 bodies, 18 of whom had firearms and shrapnel wounds, according to Reuters.
“There are witnesses who can confirm that these people were killed by the Russian forces. Without any reason, they were just walking down the street or being evacuated,” he said.
Maxar Technologies’ WorldView-3 satellite snapped photos of the mass grave, on the grounds of the Church of St. Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints, on March 31. The gravesite includes a trench about 45 feet (14 meters) long, company representatives said in an emailed statement.
It is mind-numbing to imagine the scale and scope of the devastation in Bucha, Kyiv, and other towns and cities in northern Ukraine. These atrocities are just now coming to light as Russian forces retreat from the region.
Such scenes have outraged many people around the world and spurred talk of tougher punishments against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, which is ongoing.
“Appalled by atrocities of the Russian army in #Bucha & other liberated areas. This is the cold reality of Putin’s war crimes. The world must be aware of what is happening. Tougher sanctions must be imposed. Perpetrators & their commanders must be brought to justice,” Roberta Metsola, the president of the European Parliament, said via Twitter on Sunday(opens in new tab) (April 3).
Russia, of course, denies deliberately targeting civilians in Ukraine and says the evidence of civilian killings in Bucha is a cynical ploy by Ukraine and its Western backers, who Moscow says are gripped by discriminatory anti-Russian paranoia.
Moscow calls its action a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “denazifying” Ukraine. Ukraine and the West say the invasion was illegal and unjustified.
