Massacre in Bucha
The world is stunned by “the hell of the 21st century” – and Russia denies everything
A street littered with wrecked Russian military vehicles in the Kiev suburb of Bucha
© Rodrigo Abd/AP/DPA
– Devastated houses, destroyed tanks, corpses on the streets: the images from the Kiev suburbs after the withdrawal of the Russian troops go around the world. The small town of Butscha has become a symbol of the war.
There are dead bodies everywhere. Some at least still covered with a blanket. Others just left it there, next to their bike or somewhere in the ditch. In the Ukrainian city of Bucha, 25 kilometers north-west of the capital Kyiv, a scene of horror unfolds after the retreat of the Russian army. Lifeless bodies can be seen every few meters on a street in the small town that once had a population of 27,000. An all-terrain vehicle with Ukrainian soldiers constantly has to dodge, as videos show. Kiev’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko speaks of “genocide”.
Cemeteries are not enough: 280 people buried in mass graves
These are disturbing footage from the Kiev suburb, which has been heavily contested for more than five weeks since the start of the war. An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Mykhailo Podoliak, circulated pictures of shot dead men on Twitter. One of them has his hands tied behind his back. “The hell of the 21st century,” Podoljak writes. About 280 people are buried in a mass grave who lived in Bucha and could not be buried because of the fighting. The three cemeteries in the small town are not enough.
Only shortly before the massacre became known did Ukraine announce that it had recaptured more than 30 villages in the area around the capital Kyiv. The authorities in the north-east of the former Soviet republic report that Russian soldiers are withdrawing into their own country. The British secret service confirms that. The Russian military leadership itself declared a few days ago that it wanted to focus its attacks on the east and south of the neighboring country. Elsewhere you can now see what has happened in the last five weeks.
The Bucha horror: the brutal reality of war
15 images
The footage from Bucha, which became public after the deduction, shows the full extent of the destruction. A drone with a camera flies over destroyed and partially burned out tanks. The scene is reminiscent of a huge junkyard. The bad weather and the sparse light suits it. Many houses are missing roofs. The remains of rockets can also be seen. There are also images of severe destruction from other places and small towns from which the Russians have withdrawn.
Russia denies guilt
The horror is great, far beyond the borders of Ukraine. “What happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be described as genocide,” Mayor Klitschko told the “Bild”. In Berlin, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier holds Moscow directly responsible for serious war crimes. “The pictures from Butscha shock me,” said the long-serving foreign minister. “They shock us deeply.” The EU now wants to tighten its sanctions again and later bring those responsible for the massacre to justice.
Several hours after the photos appeared, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported on Sunday evening – and denied the blame. “During the period when the settlement was under the control of the Russian armed forces, not a single resident suffered from any acts of violence,” the statement said. The Russian soldiers left the Kiev suburb last Wednesday.
The Russian opposition, on the other hand, sees responsibility with President Vladimir Putin. “This is what the “defense of the Russian world” arranged by Putin looks like,” says Kira Jarmysch, spokeswoman for the imprisoned Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny. What happened in Bucha has nothing to do with war. “War means a more or less equal fight between both sides – but that is genocide.”
Human rights organization accuses Kremlin of war crimes
The human rights organization Human Rights Watch accuses the Russian army of war crimes such as executions and looting. On Sunday it publishes a report on outright executions based on eyewitness accounts. This also includes the shooting of a man on March 4 in Bucha, in the very first days of the war. A witness reported that five men were forced by soldiers to kneel by the side of the road. Then the Russians pulled their T-shirts over their heads and shot one of them in the back of the head.
Naturally, horror and indignation are greatest on the Ukrainian side. Presidential adviser Podoljak even speaks of a “Srebrenica of the 21st century”. During the genocide in Bosnian Srebrenica in 1995, Serbian troops overran the UN protection zone there and murdered more than 8,000 Bosniaks – Muslim Bosnians. The massacre is considered the worst war crime in Europe since the end of World War II.