Until the Russian invasion, Butchia was a quiet suburb north-west of the Ukrainian capital.
As the Russian army leaves the suburbs of Kiev to focus on eastern Ukraine, it leaves behind absolute horror. The images are extremely stark from Butchia, the small town northwest of Kiev that Ukrainian soldiers recaptured from the Russians.
Horror is the only word that can describe the image in Bucha, with lifeless bodies lying in the middle of the road.
The bodies in the middle of the street and in backyards of homes captured on camera demonstrate the atrocities against civilians in suburbs and towns in the region.
The town of Butcha near Kiev after the onslaught of Russian forces
Some with eyes open to the grey sky. Others with their faces to the asphalt. All in civilian clothes. Each with his own attitude to death. Twenty bodies of men litter a road in Butza, French Press Agency and Reuters correspondents note.
The bodies, apparently of men, are scattered over several hundred meters, with no immediate cause of death possible, but one man bears a large head wound.
"All these people were shot, killed, with a bullet in the back of the head," Anatoly Fedoruk, the mayor of this town northwest of Kiev, tells Agence France-Presse, and that Ukrainian soldiers are coming to retake the town from Russian forces.
One of the men has his hands tied behind his back with a piece of white cloth, a Ukrainian passport lying on the floor next to him.
There are bodies all over the city, in front of the train station or on this side or that side of the street.
[BR]
Sixteen of the twenty bodies piled on the sidewalk or on the edge of it. Three are in the middle of the street and another in the yard of a house. Still another next to an abandoned car and two others lying next to bicycles one with orange gloves and a black balaclava, lying on his side with his bike on top of him, as if he had fallen and could not get up.
The skin on their faces is waxy, suggesting that the bodies had been there for at least several days.
[BR]
Shocked by Russian "images of atrocities" in Butchia, says Charles Michel
Further sanctions against Russia and EU support for Ukraine are on the way, European Council President Charles Michel said in a post on Twitter, while expressing shock at "the images of atrocities committed by the Russian army in the liberated Kiev region of Butza".
"The EU. is assisting Ukraine and NGOs in collecting the necessary evidence for prosecution in international courts," Charles Michel added.
Destroyed city
The horrors of war have become so commonplace in Butchnya that the last residents walk past the corpses without even looking at them.
In recent days, Russian forces have withdrawn from several locations near the capital after failing in their attempt to surround it. They are leaving the areas of Kiev and Chernigiv, in northern Ukraine, with the aim of regrouping in the east.
Ukraine announced that this city was "liberated" but was destroyed by the fighting: journalists from the French Agency saw shell holes in apartment buildings and destroyed vehicles.
Illustrating the ferocity of the fighting, this street in the city is littered with debris and downed power lines. Supermarkets, cafes and houses burned or destroyed. The roof of a church has been damaged. Only one McDonalds store appears to have been spared.
All the houses nearby appear deserted.
A silver car riddled with bullet holes, another partially crushed, and a torched van lies near several bodies. "These are the consequences of the Russian occupation," the mayor says."
Butch and the nearby town of Irpin have experienced some of the fiercest fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, when Russian soldiers tried to surround Kiev.
These two poles fought back, but the price was terribly high and most residents escaped the relentless shelling and rocket attacks.
Source: Proto Thema
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Times
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Times
Source
