(ES) Vienna, March 3, 2022
Ukraine’s foreign minister today accused Russian forces of carrying out a “massacre” in the town of Bucha, near Kiev, while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described images of dead bodies there as “a punch in the gut.” The Ukrainian defence ministry said Some were killed with their hands tied behind their backs and their bodies left scattered in the streets.It described Buchas as the “new Srebrenica.”
Russia’s defence ministry said footage and photographs of dead bodies in Bucha were “yet another staged performance by the Kyiv regime” and that “During the time that Russian armed forces were in control of this settlement, not a single local resident suffered from any violent actions.” Video: ice-skaters in Bucha before the war.
Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said the recaptured town’s streets were littered with corpses of civilians. “All these people were shot, killed, in the back of the head.” The victims were both men and women; he had also seen a 14-year-old boy among the dead. It had not been possible to collect the bodies yet, amid fears that Russian forces had booby-trapped the corpses. This evening Channel 4 News (UK) carried horrifying images of carnage and evident war crimes from the city.
It is still unclear whether reports about Russia bringing mobile cremation vehicles in Ukraine to hide their dead, described as “credible” by US intelligence, have any truth in them. France 24 tv has established that footage in a report by the London Daily Telegraph in mid-February used old and misleading footage.
- Channel 4 News, UK 03/04/22 Russia killed Bucha civilians in deliberate massacre, Ukraine says
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Reuters 03/04/22 Ukraine accuses Russia of civilian massacres
- Al Jazeera 02/04/22 Video from Kharkiv
- The Atlantic 29/03/22 Prize-winning writer-director Oleh Sentsov interviewed n frontline in his native Ukraine. Political prisoner of Russians in Arctic camp 2014 -19. His new film Rhino has just premiered in Venice.