WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT. Visiting the scene in Bucha, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters it was ‘difficult to talk’ when faced with the scale of the atrocities
The Ukrainian President become visibly emotional today as he described the discovery of raped women and murdered children among the dead in Bucha.
Volodymyr Zelensky surveyed the alleged atrocities with Ukrainian servicemen after Russian troops retreated from the area.
Ukrainian officials have said 410 innocent civilians have been killed in the towns surrounding Kyiv, with 300 of them in Bucha alone. A mass grave of 57 bodies was uncovered in the city today.
Many of the victims were found with close-range gunshot injuries, severed limbs, bound hands and signs of torture.
This evening the bodies of five more men were also discovered in a basement, AFP News Agency reports.
Speaking from Bucha, Zelensky vowed that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his troops would be punished for the alleged war crimes.
He said: “It’s very difficult to talk. It’s very difficult to negotiate when you see what they did here.
“Every day we find people in barrels, cellars and everywhere else, some strangled, some clearly tortured.”
He continued to reporters: “These are war crimes and will be recognised by the world as genocide. You are here today and can see what happened.
“We know of thousands of people killed and tortured, with severed limbs, raped women, murdered children. I think it is more than … this is a genocide.”
