The discovery of hundreds of bodies of civilians killed in Boutcha caused a veritable international shock wave. Moscow claims that these corpses were placed after the departure of Russian troops. However, satellite images published on Monday by the American company Maxar Technologies seem to refute these claims.
In Maxar footage dating back to mid-March, several bodies of civilians can be seen lying dead in a Boutcha street or on the sidewalk. However, the Ukrainian army took over this city a few days ago northwest of kyiv from the Russians. Ukrainian authorities claimed over the weekend that they had found numerous bodies in Boutcha after the withdrawal of enemy troops.
Some bodies lying for “three weeks at least”
These “high resolution images (…) corroborate recent videos and photos on social networks revealing the presence of bodies lying in the streets (of Boutcha) and abandoned for several weeks”, indicates Maxar Technologies in a press release.
In an analysis of close-ups of Yablonska Street provided by Maxxar, the american daily New York Times written mondayafter comparing them with video footage of the bodies littering this street shot on April 1 and 2, that many of them had been there for at least three weeks, when Russian forces controlled the city.
Hands tied behind the back
On Saturday, AFP saw in Boutcha the bodies of at least 22 people wearing civilian clothes in the streets of the city. One of them was lying near a bicycle and another had shopping bags next to her. A corpse had its hands tied behind its back.
On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov “categorically” rejected all these accusations, saying that Russian Defense Ministry experts had found signs of “falsifications” in the images presented by the Ukrainian authorities as evidence. a Russian massacre.
“Some are moving”
This denial was repeated in New York (United States) during a press conference by the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia. ” Suddenly [ces corps] appear in the streets, lying on the ground, one by one, who to the right, who to the left, some moving, others showing signs of life”, declared Vassily Nebenzia, denouncing a staging “arranged by the machine of Ukrainian information war”.
But according to Maxar satellite images dated March 19 and 21, several bodies were already strewn on Yablonska Street on those dates. And according to the analysis of New York Timesthese images reveal dark features similar in size to human bodies on that same street as early as March 9 and 11.
The same positions
Many of the bodies in the satellite images appear in exactly the same position on the ground as revealed by a video of Yablonka Street taken by a local councilor or by the photographs published by international media.
In another image cross-checking comparison, the New York Times analyzed a video posted on Instagram of a body lying in the street in front of two cars. According to the daily, a Maxar image from March 21 shows the body and the two vehicles in the same position, in the same place.
kyiv denounces a “genocide”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Bucha on Monday, where he denounced ‘war crimes’ and ‘genocide’ after dozens of corpses in civilian clothes came to light in the city and other localities near the Ukrainian capital.
“You are here and you can see what happened. We know that thousands of people have been killed and tortured, have had their limbs torn, women have been raped and children killed,” he said at an impromptu press briefing, after walking a few meters on a downtown street littered with the shredded carcasses of Russian armored and personnel carriers, amid destroyed houses.