Massacre in Bucha

By Anna Prykhodko
Contributor

N.B: this article may contain sensitive content. Reader discretion is advised.

As Russian forces retrieved from the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, 410 bodies were found in Bucha, a town of 35k citizens, located about 28km from downtown Kyiv. Some corpses had their hands tied, others were missing hands and feet, and some presented signs of torture and rape. Other bodies were found burned, including those of children, of with bullets in their temples or eyes, stuffed in barrels, strangles, or found in a ditch, wrapped in tape and plastic. Some corpses were also booby-trapped with explosives, so Ukrainian forced had to resort to cables to manipulate the bodies. According to the Ukrainian prosecutor-general’s office, a “torture chamber” was found in Bucha. The Kremlin has denied the occurrence of these events. Nevertheless, satellite images show that bodies in the outskirts of Kyiv first started appearing between March 8th and 11th when Russian troops entered that area of Ukraine. The bodies of civilians were left on the streets of other towns, like Irpin and Hostomel, alongside Bucha for weeks. In fact, a satellite image from March 31st shows a mass grave of bodies near the church of St. Andrew and Pyervozvannoho in Bucha. Considering that there were no military targets in the area, prosecutors could prove in the International Court of Justice that the Russian army is committing a systematic and deliberate massacre of civilians, thus committing crimes against humanity. In addition to this, McGill Law professor Frédéric Mégret explains that a genocide englobes two aspects: the action of killing an ethnic group, and the intention to kill said ethnic group.