Ukraine discovered 410 bodies near Kiev, Russia asked for an urgent meeting of the Security Council

According to Reuters, after Russian troops withdrew from some areas around Kiev, prosecutors Ukraine On April 3, it was possible to enter the towns of Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel for the first time. Ukraine’s chief prosecutor, Iryna Venedyktova, said she and her colleagues needed more time to work with witnesses and verify the extent of the crime in these places.

Destroyed cars on a highway about 20km from the Ukrainian capital Kiev. Photo: Reuters

Ms. Venedyktova said that so far, authorities have conducted an autopsy of 140 bodies out of a total of 410 people found. Prosecutors are asking the Ukrainian Ministry of Health to send as many forensic experts as possible to a field hospital in the Kiev region to assist with the process.

“Hundreds of people were killed. Civilians were tortured, executed. Dead bodies were found in the streets. Areas were bombed,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. Zelensky noted that the West will certainly impose a new set of sanctions against Russia, but he thinks that is not enough.

The mayor of Bucha, a town 37km northwest of the Ukrainian capital, accused Russian forces of killing 300 residents.

Image of people killed in a position of handcuffs on the street of Bucha near the capital Kiev, Ukraine. Photo: Reuters

According to RT, pictures and videos of Bucha, published by Ukrainian media and Western news agencies, show many bodies in civilian clothes scattered on a road. Some of the victims died with their hands tied behind their backs, while others wore white armbands, characteristic of civilians in Russian-controlled areas.

Kiev blames Moscow for the deaths in Bucha. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba even called this an act of “deliberate massacre”.

Some of the top Western officials like the President of France Emmanuel MacronBritish Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned the killing of civilians in Bucha, and considered it as evidence of wrongdoing by the Russian army.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on April 3 expressed his shock at the images of civilians being killed in Bucha. He called for an independent investigation into the incident.

A man stands next to the grave of the dead in Bucha, Ukraine. Photo: Reuters

Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry flatly denied that Russian soldiers killed civilians in Bucha. The Russian military has denounced the images and videos in the town on the outskirts of Kiev as “another provocation” by the Ukrainian government.

“Russian soldiers withdrew from the area on March 30, but the so-called evidence of the crime in Bucha appeared only four days later, when Ukrainian intelligence and representatives of Ukrainian television arrived in the town.Read More Furthermore, on March 31, Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk confirmed in a video message that there were no more troops. Russia in the town, but he did not even mention any local residents who were shot in the street with their hands tied,” the Russian military spokesman stressed.

In a new announcement on the Telegram page, Dmitry Polansky, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, said that Moscow had asked the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on April 4 to discuss “the blatant provocation by Ukrainian extremists in Bucha”.

Tuan Anh

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