Radio transmissions in which Russian soldiers appear to be talking among themselves about premeditated killings of civilians in Ukraine have been intercepted by German foreign intelligence, a source close to the intelligence said.
The evidence was presented to parliamentarians by officials from the BND foreign intelligence service on Wednesday.
Reports of the radio communications were first published in the German news magazine Spiegel, which covered the atrocities committed in Bucha, north of Kyiv.
Several of them can be directly assigned to locations and objects shown in photos documenting the aftermath of the killings, the magazine reported.
Workers review civilian agency documentation. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesA mass grave was discovered in Bucha over the weekend after the Russian military pulled out, along with dozens of civilian bodies lying on the ground. Some of the dead had their hands tied, while other bodies showed signs of torture. Many women and children are said to have been among the victims.
The Russian government has vehemently denied claims that its soldiers carried out the killings that world leaders, including Joe Biden and Germany’s Olaf Scholz, have called war crimes. Russia has repeatedly claimed the killings were staged. Nevertheless, the increasing number of testimonies has contributed to the accuracy of the reports.
In the messages, Russian soldiers are said to have spoken about how they questioned both Ukrainian soldiers and civilians before shooting at them.
According to Spiegel, who indirectly referred to people present at the meeting where BND officials presented the new evidence to a select group of MPs, the recordings “completely invalidate Russia’s denials.”
Serhii Lahovskyi mourns next to the grave of his friend Ihor Lytvynenko. Photo: Alkis Konstantinidis/ReutersIn one of the radio conversations, a Russian voice can be heard telling someone how he and another soldier shot a person who was sitting on a bicycle. One of the many images of the atrocities that have gone around the world in recent days shows a human body next to a bicycle.
In another statement, a man was heard saying, “First you question the soldier, then you shoot him.” It was given the impression that the soldiers were speaking soberly about the killings, as if they were talking about everyday activities, he said the mirror to the deputies.
The intelligence footage is also said to give credence to reports that the Russian mercenary group Wagner was a key participant in the killings. The group was previously active in the war in Syria, where the viciousness of their activities was notorious.
Bucha Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk said Thursday the number of bodies found in the city is increasing every day, with 320 civilians identified so far. Specialized detectives would have recovered bodies from private property, parks and squares and from temporary graves. “Nearly 90% were killed by bullets, not shrapnel,” he added.
BND records have fueled suspicions that these killings were not carried out indiscriminately or by soldiers who may have been acting autonomously, as previously suggested.
According to Spiegel, further radio recordings are being evaluated. However, their exact localization seems to be more difficult. They reportedly point to similar activity elsewhere in Ukraine, in and around the port city of Mariupol, which was largely destroyed by Russian bombing.
A family mourns a missing relative in front of a mass grave in the city of Bucha. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesThe source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the expertise of forensic specialists in Europe is urgently sought, with independent experts having to be ready to gather as much evidence as soon as possible once suspected atrocities come to light, from which the source said expected there would be many more.
A massacre in Mali last week that left 300 dead and allegedly involved Russian fighters had “all the hallmarks of the Russian army’s modus operandi,” the source said, adding it was comparable to attacks by the army in Syria . This has raised expectations that there will be an increasing need for expert capacity to collect forensic evidence, the source added.
In Ukraine on Thursday, as humanitarian aid teams and volunteers ventured further into the area around Kyiv retaken from Russian forces, evidence continued to surface of more atrocities being committed by the occupying forces against Ukrainian civilians.
Residents walk past destroyed Russian military aircraft. Photo: Roman Pilipey/EPAAs the streets were cleared of mines and the wreckage of burned tanks and civilian cars, residents returned home to find their homes ransacked or destroyed, neighbors missing, bodies rotting in basements, and hastily dug graves in gardens. The violence and death in the towns and villages around Kyiv contrast even with the miserable standards of other conflict zones.
Also on Thursday, Amnesty International released a report on apparent war crimes in the Kyiv region, based on interviews with 20 people who witnessed or had direct knowledge of horrific violence.
A woman in a village east of the capital told Amnesty investigators that on March 9, two Russian soldiers broke into her home, killed her husband and repeatedly raped her at gunpoint while her young son hid nearby. She later managed to escape to the territory controlled by Ukraine.
In the village of Vorzel, on March 3, Nataliya and Valeryi Tkachova left their basement to check if Russian tanks were coming and told their 18-year-old daughter Kateryna to go into hiding. After hearing gunshots, Kateryna left the basement to find her parents lying dead in the street, her father shot six times in the back and her mother once in the chest. She was assisted in leaving Vorzel on March 10th.
“Testimonies show that unarmed civilians in Ukraine are being killed in their homes and streets in acts of unspeakable cruelty and shocking brutality,” Agnès Callamard, Amnesty Secretary-General, said in a statement. “The deliberate killing of civilians is a human rights violation and a war crime. These deaths must be thoroughly investigated and those responsible brought to justice, including up the chain of command.”