Bucha: The corpses of at least 20 people in civilian clothes were found lying on a single street after Ukrainian forces retook control of the town of Bucha near Kyiv from Russian troops on Saturday, news agency AFP reported. According to the report, one of the bodies of the men had his hands tied, and the corpses were strewn over several hundred metres (yards) of the residential road in the suburban town northwest of the capital. The cause of death was not immediately clear although at least one person had what appeared to be a large head wound, the news agency reported.
Ukraine and its Western allies reported mounting evidence of Russia withdrawing its forces from around Kyiv and building its troop strength in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian fighters reclaimed several areas near the capital after forcing the Russians out or moving in after them, officials said. In this bid, Ukraine has declared that Bucha had been “liberated”.
However, the town had been reportedly left devastated by the fighting, with gaping holes from shell explosions in apartment blocks and crushed cars littering the streets.
According to AFP journalists present on spot, 16 of the 20 corpses found on one street in Bucha were lying either on the pavement or by the verge. Three were sprawled in the middle of the road and another was lying in the courtyard of a house. An open Ukrainian passport lay on the ground next to the person who had his hands tied behind his back with a piece of white cloth. All were wearing civilian clothes — winter coats, jackets or tracksuit tops, jeans or jogging bottoms, and trainers or boots.
President Zelenskyy Claims retreating Russian troops creating a “catastrophic” situation for civilians
As Russian forces pull back from Ukraine’s capital region, retreating troops are creating a “catastrophic” situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and “even the bodies of those killed,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Saturday.
The visible shift of Russian troops from around Kyiv did not mean the country faced a reprieve from more than five weeks of the war. Zelenskyy said he expects departed towns to endure missile strikes and rocket strikes from afar and for the battle in the east to be intense.
“It’s still not possible to return to normal life, as it used to be, even at the territories that we are taking back after the fighting. We need to wait until our land is demined, wait till we are able to assure you that there won’t be new shelling,” the president said during his nightly video address, though his claims about Russian mines couldn’t be independently verified.
Situation In Ukraine
Moscow’s focus on eastern Ukraine also kept the besieged southern city of Mariupol in the crosshairs. The port city on the Sea of Azoz is located in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region, where Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for eight years. Military analysts think Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to capture the region after his forces failed to secure Kyiv and other major cities.
On the outskirts of Kyiv, signs of fierce fighting were reportedly everywhere in the wake of the Russian redeployment. Destroyed armoured vehicles from both armies were left in streets and fields and scattered military gear covered the ground next to an abandoned Russian tank.
Ukrainian forces recaptured the city of Brovary, 20 kilometres east of the capital, Mayor Ihor Sapozhko said in a televised Friday night address. Shops were reopening and residents were returning but “still stand ready to defend” their city, he added. “Russian occupants have now left practically all of the Brovary district,” Sapozhko said. “Tonight, (Ukrainian) armed forces will work to clear settlements of (remaining) occupants, military hardware, and possibly from mines.”
A prominent Ukrainian photojournalist who went missing last month in a combat zone near the capital was found dead Friday in the Huta Mezhyhirska village north of Kyiv, the country’s prosecutor general’s office announced. Maks Levin, 40, worked as a photojournalist and videographer for many Ukrainian and international publications. The prosecutor general’s office attributed his death to two gunshots allegedly fired by the Russian military, and it said an investigation was underway.
Elsewhere, at least three Russian ballistic missiles were fired late Friday at the Odesa region on the Black Sea, regional leader Maksim Marchenko said. The Ukrainian military said the Iskander missiles did not hit the critical infrastructure they targeted in Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port and the headquarters of its navy.
Ukraine’s state nuclear agency reported a series of blasts Saturday that injured four people in Enerhodar, a city in southeastern Ukraine that has been under Russian control since early March along with the nearby Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Ukrainian officials also reported that the death toll from a Russian rocket strike Tuesday on a government building in Mykolaiv, a port city east of Odesa, had risen to 33, with a further 34 people wounded. The confirmed death toll has risen steadily as the search and rescue operation continues.
