The figures were presented to lawmakers by officials from the foreign intelligence service, BND, on Wednesday. Reports of the radio communications were first published in the German news magazine Spiegel, which reported that the announcements were related to atrocities that took place in Bucha, north of Kiev. Several of them can be mapped directly to locations and objects seen in photographs documenting the aftermath of the killings, the magazine said. A mass grave was discovered in Bukha at the weekend along with dozens of civilian bodies lying on the ground, following the withdrawal of the Russian army. The hands of some of the dead were tied, while other corpses showed signs of torture. Many women and children are believed to be among the victims. The Russian government has categorically denied allegations that its troops committed the killings, which world leaders, including Joe Biden and German Olaf Soltz, have called war crimes. Russia has repeatedly claimed that the killings were fabricated. However, an increasing number of testimonies has added to the accuracy of the reports. In communications, Russian soldiers claimed to have discussed how they had interrogated Ukrainian soldiers as well as civilians before firing on them. According to Spiegel, which indirectly referred to people present at the meeting at which BND officials handed over the new information to a select group of deputies, the recordings “completely nullify Russia’s denials.” In one of the radio conversations, a Russian voice is heard telling someone how he and another soldier shot a man riding a bicycle. One of the many photos of the atrocities that have taken place around the world in recent days was the corpse of a man next to a bicycle. In another communication, a man was heard saying: “First you ask the soldier and then you shoot him.” The impression was that the soldiers were talking about the killings as if they were discussing daily activities, they told lawmakers, according to Spiegel. Secret service material is also said to give credence to reports that Wagner’s group of Russian mercenaries were key figures in the killings. The group has been active in the past in the war in Syria where the vicious nature of its activities was notorious. Speaking on Thursday, Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said the number of bodies found in the city was increasing daily, with 320 people identified so far. Crime scene officers had exhumed bodies from private estates, parks and squares, he said, as well as from temporary graves. “Almost 90% were killed by bullets, not by shrapnel,” he added. BND recordings raised suspicions that these killings were neither accidental nor carried out by soldiers who might have acted autonomously, as previously suggested. Other radio recordings are being analyzed, according to Spiegel. However, their exact location seems to be more difficult. They reportedly point to similar activities in other parts of Ukraine, in and around the port of Mariupol, which has been largely destroyed by Russian bombing. The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the expertise of medical examiners in Europe is urgently sought, with independent experts having to be ready to gather as much information as possible as soon as suspicious atrocities come to light. which the source said was expected to be much more. A massacre in Mali last week that killed 300 people and allegedly involved Russian fighters had “all the hallmarks of how the Russian army operates,” the source said, adding that it was similar to the army’s attacks. participated in Syria. This had raised the expectation that the skills of experts to gather forensic evidence would be increasingly needed, the source added. In Ukraine on Thursday, as humanitarian aid groups and volunteers further dared to retake territories around Kyiv that had been recaptured by Russian troops, evidence continued to emerge of more atrocities committed against Ukrainian civilians by the occupying forces. As roads were cleared of mines and debris from burned tanks and civilian cars, residents returned to their homes to find their homes looted or damaged, missing neighbors, decomposing corpses in the basements and hastily digging graves in graves. Violence and deaths in the cities and villages around Kyiv stand out even from the abysmal standards of other conflict zones. Also Thursday, Amnesty International released a report detailing the apparent war crimes in the Kiev region, based on interviews with 20 people who witnessed or had direct knowledge of the horrific violence. A woman in a village east of the capital told Amnesty International investigators that on March 9, two Russian soldiers entered her home, killed her husband and repeatedly raped her at gunpoint, while her young son was hiding nearby. He later managed to escape into Ukrainian-controlled territory. In the village of Vorzel, Nataliya and Valeryi Tkachova left their basement on March 3 to check if Russian tanks were coming, telling their 18-year-old daughter Kateryna to stay hidden. After hearing gunshots, Katerina left the cellar to find her parents dead on the street, shot her father six times in the back and her mother once in the chest. They helped her leave Vorzel on March 10. “Evidence shows that unarmed civilians in Ukraine are being killed in their homes and on the streets in acts of untold cruelty and shocking barbarism,” Amnesty International Secretary-General Anies Kalamar said in a statement. “The premeditated killing of civilians is a violation of human rights and a war crime. “These deaths must be thoroughly investigated and those responsible must be prosecuted, including the chain of command.”
