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News
Video clip appears to show
Ukrainians killing captives
George Grylls
Evidence has emerged that appears to
show Ukrainian soldiers shooting and
killing captured Russian troops a few
miles outside Bucha, the town near
Kyiv where President Zelensky has
accused the Kremlin of perpetrating
war crimes.
A graphic video shared on pro-Rus-
sian Telegram channels appears to
show Ukrainian soldiers murdering the
men in cold blood. The video has been
verified and geolocated to Dmytrivka, a
town seven miles southwest of Bucha.
In the video, Ukrainian soldiers sur-
vey the aftermath of an apparent
ambush on retreating Russian troops.
At least three Russians lie in pools of
blood on the tarmac, seemingly dead.
One of them is clearly suffering from a
head injury and has his hands tied
behind his back. The men all wear the
white armbands of Russian troops.
A fourth Russian lies prostrate, but
shudders, indicating he is still breath-
ing. “He’s still alive. Film these maraud-
ers. Look, he’s gasping,” says a voice.
In the corner of the screen, the barrel
of a gun appears and fires two shots at
the man. The man continues to shud-
der. The gunman moves and takes aim
at the Russian soldier’s head. He shoots
again and the man stops moving.
The Ukrainian soldiers, identifiable
by their blue armbands and insignia,
repeatedly shout “Glory to Ukraine”.
They also insult the dead men.
The video was verified by The New
York Times, which said the vehicle in
the background of the video was a
BMD-2 armoured fighting vehicle used
by Russian units. The vehicle is painted
with a V, a Russian symbol.
It is thought the killings took place
around March 30 as Russian forces
withdrew from the towns surrounding
Kyiv after the assault on the Ukrainian
capital ground to a halt.
On that day, Unian, a Ukrainian
news agency, posted a video from the
scene where it said a famous legion of
Georgian volunteers was responsible
for the attack. “The Georgian legion
continues to help Ukrainians defend
the Kyiv region from the ‘liberators’,”
the caption read.
The Georgian Legion is a unit of vol-
unteers who came to fight in Ukraine
after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
One soldier in the Unian video bears a
striking resemblance to a former body-
guard for Mikheil Saakashvili, the ex-
president of Georgia. Facial matching
software has suggested it is the same
man, The New York Times said.
Mamuka Mamulashvili, the com-
mander of the Georgian legion, denied
to Sky News that any of his troops fea-
tured in the video.The biggest aluminium producer out-
side China has become the first Russian
company to call publicly for an investi-
gation into war crimes in Bucha and an
early end to the conflict in Ukraine.
“Reports from the Ukrainian city of
Bucha shocked us. We believe that this
crime should be thoroughly investigat-
ed,” Bernard Zonneveld, Rusal’s chair-
man, said on the company’s website. He
called for “severe” punishment for the
perpetrators, “no matter how hard it
may seem in the context of ongoing
information war”.
Although Rusal was not directly tar-
geted in the latest sanctions against
Russia, it has lost access to raw materi-
als from Australia, affecting a fifth of its
alumina needs. It has also had to halt
operations in Ukraine.
Radio transmissions from Russian
soldiers discussing indiscriminate
killings in Bucha are said to have been
intercepted by Germany’s foreign intel-
ligence service. According to informa-
tion obtained by Der Spiegel, the
Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND)
briefed officials that it heard radio
transmissions from Russian military
personnel in which the killing of civil-
ians was discussed “as if they were talk-
ing about banal everyday tasks”.
As The Times reported this week,
scores of civilians were killed, shot in
the head and chest, as Russian troops
retreated. President Zelensky has
described the killings as the worst
atrocities since the Second World War.
G7 foreign ministers condemned “in
the strongest terms” the actions of Rus-
sian troops in Bucha and other Ukraini-
an towns. In a joint statement, they said:
“Haunting images of civilian deaths,
victims of torture and apparent execu-
tions, as well as reports of sexual vio-
lence and destruction of civilian infra-
structure show the true face of Russia’s
brutal war of aggression against
Ukraine and its people.”
Boris Johnson described Russia’s
A witness to the Mariupol theatre
attack has described how people bat-
tled to save the lives of those caught in
the bomb blast.
Dmitry Yurin was at his flat 200 me-
tres from the theatre when the airstrike
happened on March 16. The Soviet-era
building was being used as a bomb shel-
ter by hundreds of people.
“It was terrible, a massive blast, an
enormous explosion. I heard cries and
screams,” Yurin said.
“I saw bodies and bits of bodies. I
pulled one woman out, then a girl, and
then a boy. All were hurt. The boy’s legs
didn’t move. He was screaming. My
hands were shaking. I was covered in
blood,” he told The Guardian.
He said he saw a woman lying mo-
tionless on the ground. Family mem-
bers were desperately trying to resusci-
tate her by doing compressions on her
chest.
“They were trying to bring her back.Russian troops may have left the Bucha area but the devastation wreaked by the bombardment remains. In Borodyanka,News War in Ukraine
Russian metals giant demands
James Jackson Berlin actions as the “systematic slaughter of
innocent people” but stopped short of
using the word genocide.
According to Der Spiegel, in one radio
message a man believed to be a Russian
soldier said: “You question soldiers first,
then you shoot them.” In another, a
soldier described shooting a civilian off
his bicycle, which fitted with images of
a dead man that have drawn inter-
national condemnation.
The findings undermine claims by
Russia that atrocities are being carried
out only after its soldiers have left occu-
pied areas. The German news maga-
zine said the interceptions “completely
refute Russia’s denials”. The images
from Bucha have prompted calls for
tougher sanctions against Moscow and
a war crimes prosecution.
A spokesman for the BND declined
to comment. A German government
spokesman said there were credible
indications that Russian forces in
Bucha were interrogating prisoners
“who were subsequently executed”.
The BND was said to have found that
the Wagner Group, the Russian merce-
nary unit, played a “leading role” in the
atrocities. It claimed that the units in
Bucha were initially made up of “young
soldiers”. Once they were replaced by
other units, the magazine reported, the
attacks on civilians grew.
German sources said the “material
suggests the troops spoke of the atroci-
ties as though they were simply discuss-
ing their everyday lives”. Officials said
that this “indicates that the murder of
civilians has become a standard element
of Russian military activity, potentially
even part of a broader strategy”.
Wladimir Klitschko, the former
heavyweight boxer and brother of the
Kyiv mayor, Vitaly, said he had seen
“many dead civilians” who had been
“tortured and executed” in Bucha. “I
never thought other humans could do
that to someone who was not showing
any resistance,” he told Radio 5 Live.
The Kremlin claims the deaths were
staged and a “monstrous forgery”.
‘I saw bits of bodies in theatre blast’
Tom Ball There was a child standing next to her,
saying: ‘Mum, don’t sleep.’ The woman
was dead,” Yurin said.
The exact number of people who
died in the Russian airstrike is un-
known. President Zelensky has said he
believes 300 people were killed.
With the city surrounded on all sides
by besieging Russian forces, Yurin de-
cided to swim out of Mariupol to safety.
The two-and-a-half mile route took
him past the Russian position at
Rybatske and to the village
of Melekine. An elderly
couple took him in and
gave him a shot of vod-
ka and a bowl of
bortsch. He later
made his way to Lviv.
A teenage blogger,
Alena Zagreba, has
chronicled the gradual
destruction of Mariupolin a series of video diaries that provide
a rare insight into the intense attacks
by Russian forces.
Alena, 15, records how she melted
snow for water while her parents
cooked on makeshift fire pits outside.
The family survived by moving from
house to house as shelling made their
home and other shelters uninhabitable.
Alena says at one point that her nerves
had been “destroyed” by the constant
bombardment.
The port city is a key objec-
tive for Russia, which
hopes to create a terri-
torial corridor connect-
ing Crimea with the
Donbas region.
Satellite photos re-
leased yesterday
showed a Ukrainian
naval vessel burning in
the port.
The mayor, Vadym Boy-
chenko, put the civilian death
toll in the city at about 5,000.illage
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tive
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chenko,
ttollin the ciAlena Zagreba filmed
the city’s destruction