April 5 – Satellite images taken weeks ago of the Ukraine city of Bucha show bodies of civilians on a street, a private US company said, refuting claims by the Russian government that Ukrainian forces were responsible for the deaths caused or that the scene was staged.
Maxar Technologies provided Reuters with nine images taken of Bucha on March 18, 19 and 31. At least four of the images appear to show bodies on one of the city’s streets, Yablonska Street. The city was occupied by Russian troops until around March 30.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the bodies were “staged” and images of them and what he called a false version of Ukrainian events had been circulated on social media by Western countries and Ukraine.
Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s envoy to the United Nations, said Moscow will provide the Security Council with “empirical evidence” that its forces did not kill civilians in Ukraine and were not involved in events in Bucha. L3N2W22CN
The Security Council is scheduled to meet later on Tuesday.
The New York Times, which was provided with a separate set of images of Bucha by Maxar, analyzed the images in an April 4 issue. Its analysis confirmed the accuracy of the satellite imagery.
“High-resolution Maxar satellite imagery collected over Bucha, Ukraine (northwest of Kyiv) verifies and corroborates recent social media videos and photos showing bodies lying on the street and lying in the open for weeks,” Maxar said in an email to Reuters, which also included an analysis of the images.
Ukrainian authorities have accused Russian forces of carrying out a “massacre” in Bucha, saying 300 residents were killed there during a month-long occupation. Ukrainian troops retook the city last week.
A satellite image shows an overview of Jablonska Street in Bucha, Ukraine, March 31, 2022. Picture taken March 31, 2022. Satellite image 2022 Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS
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Jeffrey Lewis, a satellite imagery expert who saw the Maxar images, described the process of deriving the images’ meaning as “very straightforward.”
“You see images on the ground showing bodies relative to cars and buildings, and on satellite imagery you can see the lumps on the ground in the same position next to the same cars and buildings.
“What the satellite images show is that the bodies were there when the Russians controlled the area,” said Lewis, who is director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
The Pentagon said Monday it could not independently confirm the reports of atrocities but had no reason to dispute them. Continue reading
A Reuters reporter saw several dead civilians in the city, including one with his hands tied behind his back. Local residents said hundreds of civilians were killed. Continue reading
Bucha’s Deputy Mayor Taras Shapravskyi said 50 of the dead residents found late last week after Russian forces withdrew from the city were victims of extrajudicial killings by Russian forces. Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, have accused Moscow of war crimes.
“These are war crimes and are recognized by the world as genocide,” Zelenskyy said on TV from Bucha, in protective gear and surrounded by military personnel. Continue reading
The deaths in Bucha, outside Kyiv, prompted pledges of further sanctions against Moscow from the West, possibly including some restrictions on billions of dollars in energy imports that Europe still imports from Russia.
President Joe Biden has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of war crimes and has called for a war crimes trial. Continue reading
Reporting by Gerry Doyle; Edited by Raju Gopalakrishnan