World News

Ukrainians find dead civilians in towns retaken from Russian forces

As Ukraine said its forces had retaken all areas about Kyiv, the mayor of a liberated town said 300 residents had been killed during a month-long occupation by the Russian army, and victims were seen in a mass grave and still lying on the streets.
Ukrainian troops have retaken more than 30 towns and villages about Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday, saying complete control of the capital region for the first time since Russia launched its invasion on February 24.

At Bucha, a town neighbouring Irpin just 37km northwest of the capital, Reuters journalists saw bodies lying in the streets and the hands and feet of multiple corpses poking out of a still-open grave at a church ground.

After more than five weeks of fighting, Russia has pulled back forces that had threatened Kyiv from the north to regroup for battles in eastern Ukraine.

“The whole Kyiv region is liberated from the invader,” Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar wrote on Facebook on Saturday. President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in a video address: “They are mining all this territory. Houses are mined, equipment is mined, even the bodies of dead people.” He did not cite evidence.

Ukraine’s emergencies service said more than 1,500 explosives had been found in one day during a search of the village of Dmytrivka, west of the capital.

Russia’s defence ministry did not reply to a request for comment on the allegations about mines. Reuters could not independently verify them. Moscow denies targeting civilians and rejects war crimes allegations.

In Bucha, mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk said more than 300 residents had been killed. Many residents tearfully recalled brushes with death. Among those killed near Kyiv was Maksim Levin, a Ukrainian photographer and videographer who was working for a news website and was a long-time contributor to Reuters.

In the east, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was hoping a convoy to evacuate civilians would reach the besieged port of Mariupol on Sunday, having abandoned earlier attempts due to security concerns. Russia blamed the ICRC for the delays.

Mariupol is Russia’s main target in Ukraine’s southeastern region of Donbas, and tens of thousands of civilians there are trapped with scant access to food and water.

British military intelligence said Russian naval forces maintained a blockade of the Ukrainian coast along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, but the option of amphibious landings were becoming increasingly highrisk for Russia.

It said reported mines, the origin of which remained unclear and disputed, posed a serious risk to shipping in the Black Sea. Early on Sunday, missiles struck the southern port city of Odesa, the city council there said.

Source: Reuters

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