DNIPRO, Ukraine – Russian forces have withdrawn from around Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, but there have been no celebrations in the country. What they left behind is hard to comprehend and even harder to see. CBS News warns our readers that both the above video report and the following article contain disturbing material.
Independent journalists who went to the city of Bucha, northwest of the capital, over the weekend found the streets littered with bodies. The dead wore civilian clothes and some had their hands tied behind their backs, apparently executed.
Others were buried in a mass grave. According to the city’s mayor, more than 300 residents were killed.
A man points to a mass grave in the city of Bucha, northwest of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, April 3, 2022. SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty
In the central Ukrainian village of Kalynivka, which is closer to southern and eastern Ukrainian cities, Russia has been pounding artillery and airstrikes for weeks, Irina Kostenko said the Russians killed her only son Oleksei.
She said she brought her son’s body home in a wheelbarrow and then buried it alone in the garden, wrapped in a rug, in a shallow grave.
He was killed when he was 27, but Kostenko clung to a photograph of him as a child as she stood at his grave.
“This is my love, sweetheart,” she said.
CBS News senior foreign correspondent Holly Williams reports that Ukrainian officials shared photos taken on a highway outside the capital over the weekend showing the naked bodies of at least four women. Officials said Russian troops attempted to burn the women’s bodies.
Human Rights Watch and other groups have documented allegations of rape by Russian troops during the invasion that Vladimir Putin launched on February 24. Ukrainian officials are investigating.
Zelenskyy calls the Russian attack on Ukraine a “genocide” on “Face the Nation” 07:59
Speaking on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of committing genocide in his country. “We are being destroyed and exterminated,” he said, “and that’s happening in 21st-century Europe.”
Zelenskyi visited Bucha on Monday to inspect the damage and speak to local residents. Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, said the president found “evidence of mass killings.”
According to Gerashchenko, a BBC correspondent asked Zelenskyy if he still believed in peace negotiations with Russia. The President said that this is because “Ukraine needs to find peace. We are in 21st century Europe. We will continue our diplomatic and military efforts.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (C) talks to reporters in the town of Bucha, northwest of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv April 4, 2022. RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP/Getty
The south-eastern port city of Mariupol has been besieged and bombarded by the Russians for almost 40 days since the beginning of the war. Thousands have died there alone, according to the United Nations, but it’s impossible to get an accurate picture because Mariupol is cut off from the outside world.
Ilona, 17, and her brother Milan, 10, made it out of town with their parents on Friday. CBS News found her sitting silently in an evacuation center, apparently in shock.
“There were constant bombings, constant explosions,” said Ilona Williams. There were times when they thought they were going to die in their town, but she said she tried to “keep us together — we tried not to panic” during the ordeal.
Refugee women share the horrors they faced while stranded in Mariupol in the midst of the war: “We carried corpses” 01:36
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said almost two weeks ago that the US had determined that Russian forces had committed “war crimes” in Ukraine and accused them of “indiscriminate attacks and targeted attacks on civilians”.
On Sunday, he told CNN the images of Bucha were “a punch in the gut,” and he said the US was “working to document” and make its own information “available to the relevant institutions and organizations that are responsible for all of this.” will be merged”. to ensure that all armed forces guilty of war crimes would be held accountable.
“We can’t normalize this,” he said. “This is the reality of what is happening every single day as long as Russia’s brutality against Ukraine continues. So it must end.”
We condemn in the strongest terms apparent atrocities committed by Kremlin forces in Bucha and throughout Ukraine. We strive for accountability by using every tool available, documenting and sharing information to hold those responsible accountable.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) April 4, 2022
On Monday, Russian officials denied that civilians were killed in Bucha. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed the gruesome scenes in Bucha were faked by Ukrainian forces as a “provocation”. It has become a common refrain from Moscow, issued after previous alleged atrocities in that war came to light and during Russia’s long involvement in Syria’s brutal civil war.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed reports of what he called a “sham attack” in Bucha, saying Russia “is calling for an urgent Security Council meeting on this specific issue because we view such provocations as a direct threat to world peace and international security.” view security.”
But the United Nations human rights chief was among those who expressed horror at the scenes from Bucha on Monday.
Congressman on how Putin’s war in Ukraine mimics actions in Syria 12:27
“I am appalled by the images of civilians lying dead on the streets and in improvised graves in the city of Bucha, Ukraine,” the UN’s Michelle Bachelet said in a statement. “Reports from this and other areas raise serious and troubling questions about possible war crimes, gross violations of international humanitarian law and gross violations of international human rights.”
Pamela Falk, CBS News correspondent at the United Nations, said US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke Monday with the Romanian prime minister about America’s intention to try to bar Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.
According to a reading of Thomas-Greenfield’s meeting with the Romanian leader, she said Russia’s expulsion from the human rights organization was necessary “given the mounting evidence that members of the Russian armed forces are committing war crimes in Ukraine and following horrific reports of violence against Romania civilians in Bucha.”
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, who was assisting his Polish counterpart on a visit to Warsaw, said he was “deeply shocked by the news of the extraordinarily cruel acts of violence against civilians near Kyiv”.
“The killing of innocent civilians violates international humanitarian law and is unacceptable, and I condemn these acts in the strongest terms,” he added. “The Russian attack is a blatant violation of international law.”
We knew that Putin’s invasion plans included summary executions by his military and intelligence agencies. The reports of execution killings of civilians from liberated areas are appalling and appalling. https://t.co/Yea1Lhsqe6
— Richard Moore (@ChiefMI6) April 3, 2022
In London, the head of the UK’s CIA equivalent, MI6 chief Richard Moore, said in a tweet that Russia was planning mass executions as part of its strategy in Ukraine. He shared an earlier message from the British Foreign Secretary demanding that those responsible for the killings documented in the Kyiv suburbs be held accountable.
As Williams reported, the Russian soldiers accused of massacring unarmed civilians in Bucha and elsewhere in Ukraine will likely never be brought to justice.
The body of a man with his hands tied behind his back, who local residents say was shot dead by Russian soldiers, lies on the street amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine April 3, 2022 in Bucha, Ukraine. ZOHRA BENSEMRA/REUTERS
But despite the horrific images and the killing of thousands of his own soldiers on the battlefield, a new poll in Russia found Putin’s approval rating has risen to 83% since the invasion began.
While thousands were arrested in Russian cities last month for protesting the war in Ukraine, many Russians rely solely on the country’s state-run news organizations for their information. These media present only the Kremlin version of what Putin calls the “military special operation,” and no Russian media outlet is free to report the truth about what is happening in Ukraine.
How Russia is cracking down on anti-war protests 03:46 More