Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said its forces had seized control of the Kyiv region from Russian troops, as officials warned the withdrawing soldiers would create a “catastrophic” situation for civilians by leaving mines behind.
Saturday’s announcement marks the first time Ukraine has claimed control of the capital region since Russia began its invasion on February 24.
“The entire Kyiv region is liberated from the invaders,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar wrote on Facebook.
There was no immediate Russian comment on the allegation.
According to official figures, Ukrainian troops have recaptured more than 30 towns and villages around Kyiv. The retaken cities bore the scars of five weeks of fighting, with destroyed armored vehicles, military equipment and dozens of bodies strewn about the streets.
In Bucha, a city northwest of the capital, Ukrainian soldiers used cables to drag the bodies of civilians off the street, fearing Russian forces might have left them booby-trapped.
Bucha Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk said authorities there buried 280 people in a mass grave and said the victims included women and a 14-year-old boy.
“All these people were shot in the back of the head, killed,” Fedoruk said.
A man stands next to a civilian vehicle that was destroyed during fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces and still contains the body of the driver, in a city outside of Kyiv [Vadim Ghirda/ AP]
At least 20 bodies were seen on a street in Bucha, including one with his hands tied, according to AFP.
An open Ukrainian passport lay on the ground next to him, and two other people had a white cloth tied around their upper arms.
AFP said everyone was wearing civilian clothes — winter coats, jackets or tracksuits, jeans or sweatpants, and sneakers or boots.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said she was appalled by the atrocities in Bucha and supported the International Criminal Court’s investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine.
Russia denies attacks on civilians and rejects war crimes allegations.
mines
Since Russia sent troops to Ukraine as part of a so-called “special operation” to demilitarize its neighbor, Russia has failed to capture a single major city, instead laying siege to urban areas and uprooting a quarter of Ukraine’s population.
Ukrainian forces on Saturday reported reduced Russian air and missile attacks but said Russian troops retreating from near Kyiv were using mines.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in a video address: “They are mining this whole territory. Houses are mined, equipment is mined, even the bodies of dead people.”
He did not give any evidence.
Ukraine’s emergency service said a search of the village of Dmytrivka, west of Kyiv, found more than 1,500 explosives in one day.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on the mining allegations.
Russia has presented its withdrawal of forces near Kyiv as a goodwill gesture in peace talks. Ukraine and its allies say Russia was forced to shift its focus to eastern Ukraine after suffering heavy casualties near Kyiv.
However, the postponement does not mean that the country faces more than five weeks of respite from war or that the more than 4 million refugees who have fled Ukraine will return anytime soon.
Zelenskyi said he expected that the cities from which Russian forces were withdrawing would withstand long-range missile and rocket attacks and that the battle in the east would be intense.
In his late night video address on Saturday, the Ukrainian leader said the country’s troops would not let the Russians withdraw without a fight: “They are shelling them. They destroy everyone they can.”
Russia, Zelenskyy said, has enough power to put more pressure on eastern and southern Ukraine.
“What is the aim of the Russian troops? They want to conquer Donbass and southern Ukraine,” he said. “What is our goal? To defend ourselves, our freedom, our country and our people.”
“Symbol of the Ukrainian Resistance”
Moscow’s focus on eastern Ukraine also kept the besieged southeastern city of Mariupol in its crosshairs. The port city on the Sea of Azov is in the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbass region, where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian troops for eight years.
Military analysts believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to conquer the region after his forces failed to secure Kyiv and other major cities.
The International Committee of the Red Cross had hoped to evacuate Mariupol residents on Saturday but had not yet reached the city. A day earlier, local authorities said the Red Cross was being blocked by Russian forces.
An adviser to Zelenskyi, Oleksiy Arestovych, said in an interview with Russian lawyer and activist Mark Feygin that Russia and Ukraine had reached an agreement to allow 45 buses to go to Mariupol to evacuate residents “in the coming days”. .
Mariupol City Council said earlier on Saturday that 10 empty buses were heading to Berdyansk, a town 84 km (52.2 miles) west of Mariupol, to pick up people who could have managed to get there on their own.
About 2,000 people made it out of Mariupol on Friday, some on buses and some in their own vehicles, city officials said.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk said 765 residents of Mariupol used private vehicles to reach Zaporizhia on Saturday, a city still under Ukrainian control and serving as a target for other planned evacuations.
Some civilians who fled the besieged city said Russian soldiers searching for Ukrainian militants repeatedly stopped them as they fled.
“They stripped the men naked and looked for tattoos,” said Dmytro Kartavov, a 32-year-old contractor.
Taking Mariupol would give Moscow an uninterrupted land bridge from Russia to Crimea, which it captured from Ukraine in 2014. But his resistance has also acquired symbolic importance during the Russian invasion, said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Ukrainian think tank Penta.
“Mariupol has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, and without capturing it, Putin cannot sit down at the negotiating table,” Fesenko said.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiators held face-to-face talks in Istanbul, Turkey this week but described the talks as “difficult”. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday that “the most important thing is that talks continue, either in Istanbul or elsewhere.”
A new round of talks has not yet been announced.
But Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said Saturday enough progress had been made to allow direct talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy.
“The Russian side has confirmed our thesis that the draft documents are sufficiently developed to allow for direct consultations between the leaders of the two countries,” Arakhamia said.
Russia has not commented on the possibility.