This week, researchers in this Ukrainian city searched homes and mass graves to find out how many. Russian soldiers occupied Bucha for a month and their campaign of atrocities killed hundreds. Since the recapture of the city by Ukrainian forces last week, investigators from across the country have been called in to comb the neighborhoods for the remaining dead. In a basement, they found five men, each with his hands tied before being shot in the head. In a clearing not far away there was another corpse, with the remains of a Russian camp. As the police spread throughout the city in search of more, the researchers gathered in a group grave near a church with a golden top in the center of Bouhaha. Officials had suggested it contained at least 50 bodies. Dressed in black cups and a vest that read “War Crimes Prosecutor”, the highest-ranking official turned to his colleague, who would count them. “Alina,” he said, “you can start.” Ukrainian officials said early Friday that they had collected 320 bodies in their weekly search through Butsa, almost half of which have not yet been identified. This number did not include what was recorded throughout the day on Friday. According to residents who endured the Russian occupation, the treatment of a district depended on its conquerors. Some units performed better than others. But executions took place all over the city. Investigators say dozens of them have been subjected to prolonged abuse. Others were just part of the daily violence used by the soldiers – some drunk, some scared – to instill terror in the population. In Bucha, the extent of Russian barbarism comes to the fore At the mass grave on Friday, forensic officials worked carefully on the sandy ground, pulling the body bags after the bags from the pit to the ground before opening them, registering them and then closing them gently with a zipper. Russian soldiers had confiscated cell phones, leaving families disconnected for weeks. When the soldiers left, many residents showed up to find that relatives were missing. Some stood at the tomb on Friday to seek answers as to whether this was their place of rest. “I came here because my son got lost here,” said Natalia Lukianenko, 63. She had tried to call him more times than she could remember. When he asked his friends, they said he had not been in contact. “There are people who say their children are buried there,” Lucianenko said anxiously as she placed a reassuring hand around her daughter Anna. The 27-year-old looked at the ground. “We hope he is alive,” he said. Ruslan Kravchenko, the Butsa district war crimes prosecutor, said the group had examined 21 bodies, 19 of which had been shot or broken. Two were women. “All the necessary tests will be done,” he said. The search was due to resume on Saturday. The prosecutor’s job is the same as that of officials in other cities where abuses by Russian forces have been reported. On Friday, officials in Makariv, southwest of Bucha, said authorities had collected at least 132 bodies as the search continued. In Bucha, Washington Post reporters saw the discovery of other bodies. On a forest path outside Yablunska Street, the body of a Ukrainian man, identified by his wife, had been left behind by Russian soldiers after their retreat. In the northern part of the city, police entered a yard and found a woman who had committed suicide. The noose he had used to hang himself was still visible on a tree under a canopy of vines. As they searched the garden for further information, one of the researchers stopped and shook his head. “It was bad in this place,” he said. “People were so scared.” Strike at train station in eastern Ukraine inflicts brutal price on civilians As the magnitude of the bloodshed became apparent, Ukrainian officials urged the international community to bring an international tribunal to justice for the alleged crimes committed in Ukraine. If they did not, said Ukraine’s National Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, who was standing at the grave, “then it would mean that we have no law or rule of law.” With authorities overwhelmed, video showed that at least one body had been left in a vehicle on a nearby highway for almost a month. The co-driver was accompanied by the body of a woman dressed in civilian clothes, according to a video posted on Twitter by a member of the Ukrainian parliament. Holes that appear to have come from bullets or shrapnel hit the vehicle. The video was posted by MP Oleksiy Goncharenko, who said on the recording that the body was a woman. Goncharenko said a family had fled the war when it was hit by a Russian attack. Satellite imagery provided by Maxar Technologies shows that the vehicle has been there for at least three and a half weeks. A satellite image taken on March 9 shows the vehicle at the same location as in the video. Satellite images from Maxar Technologies show the damaged car recorded in the April 3 video at the same location on a road outside Bucha throughout March. (Video: TWP, Photo: TWP) The time frame overlaps with intense fighting on the outskirts of Bucha. When Russian troops cut off a catastrophic path through suburbs such as Bucha, which surrounds the capital, Kyiv, they aimed to encircle the city, U.S. officials say. It did not turn out that way. A road approaching the city has essentially become a graveyard for tanks trying to enter. Inside Bucha, there are few traces of troops now, only Ukrainian corpses. A police investigator zealously went through the gate of another house where instructions indicated that a murder had taken place. His shoulders were drooping. He looked exhausted. “Everyone, leave us alone with our dead here,” he told reporters who covered the scene. “Leave us alone to grieve for them.” Serhiy Morgunov in Bucha, Jon Swaine in New York and Sarah Cahlan and Reis Thebault in Washington contributed to this report.
