In Bucha, the scope of Russian barbarity is coming into focus
But the scale of the killings and the depravity with which they were committed is only just becoming apparent as police, local officials, and regular citizens start the grim task of clearing Bucha of the hundreds of corpses decomposing on streets and in parks, apartment buildings, and other locations.
As a team from the district prosecutor's office moved slowly through Bucha on Wednesday, investigators uncovered evidence of torture before death, beheading and dismemberment, and the intentional burning of corpses. Vladimir Putin wants to build a pro-Russia empire from Vladivostok to Portugal'
World leaders are calling for President Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes but experts are concerned these horrors could continue as the despot pushes forward with a grander plan to build a sprawling empire
Boris Johnson says Russia's war in Ukraine 'doesn't look far short of genocide'
Russian President Vladimir Putin is endeavoring to build a pro-Russian empire stretching from "Vladivostok to Lisbon", a former Russian president has warned.
The ex-president and deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said Putin launched his brutal invasion of the former Soviet republic to bring peace to Ukraine, in a Telegram post.
The shocking allegations were made as Western leaders shared fears Moscow is planning a new military offensive in southern and eastern parts of Ukraine.
Medvedev said: "To change the bloody and full of false myths consciousness of a part of today’s Ukrainians is the most important goal.
"The goal is for the sake of the peace of future generations of Ukrainians themselves and the opportunity to finally build an open Eurasia – from Lisbon to Vladivostok."
Luke Harding
Luke Harding in Lviv
Dmitry Yurin was at home on 16 March when a Russian bomb struck Mariupol’s drama theatre. His flat in Prospect Mira was a couple of hundred meters away, across a square with a fountain. The theatre had become a capacious air-raid shelter. Hundreds of women and children were inside.
“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.”
Nearby a woman lay motionless on the ground. Family members were desperately attempting to resuscitate her, pressing on her chest. “They were trying to bring her back. There was a child standing next to her, saying: ‘Mum, don’t sleep.’ The woman was dead.”
The exact number of people who perished in the Russian airstrike is still unknown. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, says 300 people were killed. Witnesses including Yurin confirm there were dozens of bodies. They say continuous Russian shelling made rescue work dangerous.
Yurin said he went back to the garage where he had been sheltering with his mother, Nadezhda, lit a cigarette, and swallowed some tablets. He decided he had to get out of Mariupol, which for two gruesome weeks Russian forces had attacked and besieged. The city was cut off from all directions.
He came up with an extraordinary plan. Yurin decided he would swim to safety.
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