Independent researchers say preliminary findings suggest a widespread pattern of abuse. Richard Weir, a Human Rights Watch researcher, said he had visited four separate sites where Russian troops were stationed in Bucha and collected evidence of possible war crimes in each. “Where there were static Russian positions, there were corpses,” he told the Telegraph. Rising figures for war crimes add strength to calls for further sanctions on Russia. Kit Malthouse, the police minister, said on Sunday that Britain could impose targeted sanctions on Russian soldiers and officers suspected of “really horrific” war crimes. “While this is going on, we can take action at home around the sanctions we can impose on individuals, including fighters, leading generals and others involved, to signal recognition of their role in this horrific, formidable attack on a free democratic country. He told Sky News. “We support the conflict as much as we can to support the Ukrainians in their struggle. “We will do the same to bring to justice those who have committed some really horrible crimes during this terrible time.” Among the dead are women and children. In the same area as the mass grave in the church of St. Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints is a separate tomb of a mother and two sons. A raw wooden cross adorned with a green scarf reads: Margarita Chikmariov, 34; Matviy, 10; Climate, 4. The death toll may continue to rise as more bodies are retrieved. On Sunday, Bucha police removed the body of a man buried in a shallow grave near a kindergarten, according to Vladyslava Liubarets, a local resident. “The whole city is now a crime scene,” she told the Telegraph as she sheltered from the rain at the kindergarten playground. “Wherever Russian soldiers went, they committed crimes. “They came back breaking doors, looting, killing people, wherever you look it is just a huge crime scene.” Some houses were even looted, he claimed. “Sometimes they saw a man walking and they stopped him from stealing his shoes from his feet.”
