Bucha Mayor: Russia Shows Consciously Killing Civilians

Car of civilian victims in Bucha, Ukraine (Wikimedia Commons/npu.gov.ua./National Police of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - The Ukrainian city of Bucha has just been liberated from Russian 'control', when the city's leader accused Moscow soldiers of deliberately killing civilians during the roughly month-long occupation, a charge denied by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

The mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, showed the Reuters team two bodies with white cloths tied around their arms which he said were what residents were forced to wear by fighters from Chechnya, a region in southern Russia that has deployed troops to Ukraine in support of Russia.

One of the corpses was bound by a white cloth, and appeared to have been shot in the mouth.

The Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement on Sunday saying all photos and videos published by Ukrainian authorities accusing the "crimes" by Russian troops in Bucha were provocations.

Bucha is located 37 km (23 miles) northwest of Kyiv city and this weekend when journalists visited, authorities began making accusations of atrocities, it was a sight of destroyed buildings and streets littered with corpses.

"Every war has some rules of engagement for civilians. Russia has shown that they knowingly kill civilians," Fedoruk said.

Fedoruk said on Saturday that more than 300 of the city's residents had died. Reuters, brought to the scene by Ukrainian authorities, was not immediately able to verify the mayor's allegations.

Meanwhile, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, an ally of Putin, said in a statement on February 26 that Chechen troops would fight in Ukraine as part of Russia's special military operation, which was launched two days earlier.

Reuters was unable to determine whether they were operating in Bucha. A spokesman for Kadyrov did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In its statement, Russia's defense ministry said further. "As long as the Russian armed forces control these settlements, not a single local resident has suffered as a result of this act of violence."

The ministry added that before the Russian troops withdrew on March 30, they had delivered 452 tonnes of humanitarian aid to civilians around the Kyiv region.

"All the time the city was under the control of the Russian armed forces and, and after that, to this day, in Bucha, local residents freely move around the city and use mobile communications," the ministry said.

On Saturday, Ukraine said its forces had retaken all areas around Kyiv and now had full control of the capital area for the first time, since the Russian invasion began on February 24.

Bucha is located in a strategically significant cluster of towns on the northwestern outskirts of Kyiv, near the military airports of Irpin and Hostomel. The city was occupied in the early days after the invasion by Russian troops who swept south towards the capital.

Bucha and the northern outskirts of Irpin were the points where the main and armored Russian troops advancing from the northwest were stopped after meeting unexpectedly fierce resistance from Ukrainian troops.

The area saw some of the bloodiest fighting for the capital until Russia pulled troops back from northern Kyiv saying it planned to focus on eastern Ukraine.

On Saturday, Reuters reporters saw bodies in civilian clothes lying on the streets of Bucha or half-buried in the ground, Ukrainian soldiers taking photos of each other next to burned Russian armored vehicles.

Hands and other body parts can be seen sticking out of the ground, while on the street bodies lay next to the bicycles that people appeared to be riding when they were killed.

Alexander Syrsky, the Ukrainian general who led the defense of Kyiv, told reporters, the prosecutor's office, police, and other agencies were working to determine the areas from which Russia had withdrawn, to identify the bodies, and "to identify those who committed the crimes." this crime."

Separately, speaking at the recently recaptured Hostomel Airport, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Sunday: "It is inhumane to only commit crimes against civilians, rape, kill, shoot them in the back of the head. The whole world needs to know about this."

Reuters could not immediately verify the allegations.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin denies it has invaded Ukraine, saying it is carrying out special military operations to bring down Ukraine's armed forces, targeting military installations rather than carrying out attacks on civilian areas.

New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement on Sunday saying it had found "several cases of Russian military forces violating the laws of war" in Russian-controlled territories, such as Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv, citing Bucha as one location.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to questions about the specific allegations in HRW's statement.

To note, the International Criminal Court's Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, said last month he had opened an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine, but said it represented "a myriad of challenges, opportunities, and difficulties".

Some legal experts say prosecuting President Vladimir Putin or other Russian leaders will face high hurdles and could take years.