The district attorney general in Ukraine, Bukha, told the New York Times that Russian soldiers had left behind a computer server with potentially convicting information as investigators investigated the killings and mass graves in the city. Last week, Ukrainian authorities discovered a mass grave on the outskirts of Kiev, claiming that Russian soldiers had killed and buried 360 Ukrainians in a 45-foot-long ditch. Journalists who visited Bukha after the withdrawal of Russian troops also reported the bodies of civilians in their homes, on the streets and in the suburban glass factory. About 35,000 people live in the northern suburbs of Kiev. “We have already compiled lists and data of the military,” prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko told the Times. “This data spans more than a hundred pages.” Kravchenko added that the killings were being investigated as war crimes and that most of the more than 250 people killed had been hit by bullets or shrapnel. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the bodies found in Bucha were “staged”, a claim similar to those pushed by Russian propagandists. Serhiy Kaplychny, who works at the Bucha cemetery, told the Times that only two members of the Ukrainian army were killed and buried in the mass grave. A separate visual survey by the New York Times found that the mass grave was created before Russia withdrew from the suburbs on March 30. As troops were driven out by Ukrainian forces, videos and photos of atrocities by Bukha flooded the internet. Kravchenko told the Times that authorities were investigating reports of rape, torture and executions in Bukha during the month Russia occupied the city, noting that many of the heinous acts were reported to have taken place in the glass factory. The Ukrainian government has also set up a website, warcrimes.gov.ua, where citizens and journalists have posted more than 7,000 photos and videos related to possible war crimes in Bucha and elsewhere in Ukraine.
