The withdrawal of Russian troops from the city of Bucha, near the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, left a macabre scenario. The bodies of dozens of people were found this Saturday (2) scattered through the streets of the city, a scene of fighting since the beginning of the war.
According to the mayor of Bucha, Anatoli Fedorouk, about 280 people had to be buried in mass graves due to the difficulty of accessing public cemeteries that were in territory under threat from Russia.
The AFP news agency counted at least 20 corpses strewn across the city’s streets. Some had their hands tied and showed signs that they had been exposed for several days. Others were close to documents that indicate they are Ukrainian citizens. “All these people were killed by a shot to the back of the head,” Fedorouk said.
Ukrainian troops have only now managed to enter the city, which has been inaccessible, occupied by Russian forces, for more than a month.
According to the mayor, there are men and women among the victims, including a 14-year-old teenager. Many of the corpses carried white cloth, a signal to warn that they were civilians and were unarmed. There are cars scattered around the city “with entire families dead: children, women, grandparents, men,” he said.
Ukrainian forces have been advancing and reclaiming regions around the capital, where Russian troops are starting to leave the front and abandon military equipment, such as tanks, after failing to take the city.
Russia says it has shifted the focus of its “special military operation”, as Moscow calls the invasion, to southeastern Ukraine, where it has supported separatists since 2014, in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.
Russia says the troop withdrawal from the Kiev region is a goodwill gesture to contribute to peace talks, but Ukrainians and the country’s allies say Russian forces were forced to regroup in other regions after suffering heavy losses. .
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday, without providing evidence, that Russian forces had been spreading landmines as they demobilized troops from the capital region. The information cannot be independently confirmed.
Britain’s intelligence service, which has monitored troop movements in the war, said on Saturday that Russian troops had abandoned Hostomel airport, on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, the scene of clashes since the first day of the conflict.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhaklo Podoliak said the government saw a “rapid withdrawal” of Russian forces from the Kiev and Chernihiv regions. “It is quite clear that Russia has chosen another tactic as a priority: withdrawing to the east and south, maintaining control of vast occupied territories and gaining a powerful foothold in the region,” he wrote on his Telegram channel, in which he warned against a reorganization of Russian forces in other regions of the country.
The governor of the Chernihiv region, Viacheslav Chaus, said that the city of the same name, devastated by the fighting in recent weeks, did not suffer new attacks in the early hours of Saturday. “The Russians are withdrawing from the Chernihiv region,” he said.
In addition to regaining control around Kiev, Ukrainian troops were advancing in the southern Kherson region, the only major city Russia has managed to occupy since February 24.
