“War crimes” in Boutcha: what we know
Ukraine and Western countries accuse Russia of « massacres » and of “war crimes” since the discovery of hundreds of corpses in several localities in the Kyiv region occupied by Russian forces in March. Here is what we know about these events.
- Devastated family suburb
Boutcha was, before the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, a family suburb of about 37,000 inhabitants, located 30 kilometers northwest of kyiv and surrounded by pine forests. The Russian army entered there on February 27, but only really took control on March 5, according to the NGO Human Rights Watch, which investigated on the spot. Several civilian evacuation operations were carried out by the Ukrainian authorities until that date, but approximately 4,000 inhabitants remained trapped thereafter. The press is prohibited from entering Boutcha from March 13. After the withdrawal of Russian forces from the kyiv region on March 31, the mayor of Butcha, Anatolii Fedoruk, announced on March 1e April, the “liberation of the city”.
- First macabre discoveries
Journalists manage to enter Boutcha on 1is april. While traversing the devastated city, they discover in Yablounska street, one of the longest in the city, scattered over several hundred meters, the corpses of twenty men, civilians. Ivana-Franka Street was also the scene of a massacre that lasted several weeks, as the story goes The world.
During the Russian occupation, two large mass graves were dug to temporarily bury the bodies, the three cemeteries of the city, within range of Russian fire, being inaccessible. After the withdrawal of Russian troops, some 400 bodies are found, in these pits or private gardens, or sometimes lying without burial, according to local police chief Vitaly Lobass. In the region as a whole, more than 1,000 civilian bodies have been found, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanschyna.
On April 4, two days after the publication by the media of the images taken in Yablounska Street, President Volodymyr Zelensky made a trip to Boutcha. “These are war crimes, and they will be recognized by the world as genocide”, he says. On April 13, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Briton Karim Khan, visiting Boutcha, describes Ukraine as ” crime scene ” and announces that a forensic team will work in Boutcha. On April 25, he announced that his investigators had joined the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) into crimes committed in Ukraine formed in March by Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine with the support of Eurojust, the agency of the European Union for judicial cooperation in criminal matters
On April 21, the NGO Human Rights Watch, whose team investigated Boutcha from April 4 to 10, also said it had found “substantiated evidence of summary executions, murders, disappearances, and torture”which would constitute “war crimes and potential crimes against humanity. » For its part, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations reports on April 22 that its investigators, during a mission to Boutcha on April 9, “documented the killing, including by summary execution, of some 50 civilians at the scene”. France has also dispatched gendarmes and magistrates to Boutcha.
A few hours after the publication of photos of the bodies in Yablounska Street, the Russian army claims to have discovered “falsifications” proving, according to her, a staging, claiming in particular that a corpse moved its hand on a widely shared video, or that another was seen getting up in the rear view mirror of a car. Vladimir Putin evokes a “gross and cynical provocation” from Kyiv. The spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, claims that kyiv either executed civilians in Boutcha or transported bodies to stage them. Satellite images from the American company Maxar Technologies, coupled with the analysis of photos taken by AFP, however, contradict this version and show that several bodies had been there for at least three weeks. CNN reported this week having recovered and authenticated two new Boutcha videosfilmed on March 12 and 13 by a drone, where we see military vehicles and Russian forces in Yablounska Street, not far from the bodies.
Despite Russian denials, kyiv and its Western allies claim to have “evidence” that Russian forces are responsible for most of the civilian deaths in Boutcha. kyiv accused the 64e Russian motorized rifle brigade for participating in the abuses. The Prosecutor General of Ukraine announced on April 28 that ten Russian soldiers belonging to this brigade had been indicted for “cruel treatment” and threats of murder against civilians in Boutcha, stating that the investigation was continuing to determine their possible involvement in “premeditated murders”. According to radio communications from Russian soldiers intercepted by German intelligence, members of the Russian mercenary group Wagner – already deployed in the Donbass conflict in 2014, then in Syria and Africa – also participated in the abuses.