Bucha massacre
The Bucha massacre (Ukrainian: Бучанська різанина, romanized: Buchanska rizanyna; Russian: Резня в Буче, romanized: Reznya v Buche) was the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war[12] by the Russian Armed Forces during the fight for and occupation of the city of Bucha as part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photographic and video evidence of the massacre emerged on 1 April 2022 after Russian forces withdrew from the city.[13][14]
Bucha massacre
March 2022; 2 years ago
Civilians
Mass murder (including torture and execution), looting and rape
- 458 (according to the Ukrainian government)[1]
- 73–178 (according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights)[2][3]
234th Guards Air Assault Regiment (denied by Russia)
Anti-Ukrainian sentiment;[4]
genocidal intent (alleged;[note 1] recognised as such by the Ukrainian Rada[11])
According to local authorities, 458 bodies have been recovered from the town, including nine children under the age of 18; among the victims, 419 people were killed with weapons and 39 appeared to have died of natural causes, possibly related to the occupation.[1][15] The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights documented the unlawful killings, including summary executions, of at least 73 civilians in Bucha.[16][3] Photos showed corpses of civilians, lined up with their hands bound behind their backs, shot at close range.[17] An inquiry by Radio Free Europe reported the use of a basement beneath a campground as a torture chamber.[18][19] Many bodies were found mutilated and burnt,[20][21] and girls as young as fourteen reported being raped by Russian soldiers.[20][22] In intercepted conversations, Russian soldiers referred to these operations involving hunting down people in lists, filtration, torture, and execution as zachistka ("cleansing").[23] Ukraine has asked the International Criminal Court to investigate what happened in Bucha as part of its ongoing investigation of the invasion to determine whether a series of Russian war crimes or crimes against humanity were committed.[24][25]
Russian authorities have denied responsibility and instead claimed that Ukraine faked footage of the event or staged the killings itself as a false flag operation,[26] and have claimed that the footage and photographs of dead bodies were a "staged performance".[27] These assertions by Russian authorities have been debunked as false by various groups and media organizations.[note 2] Additionally, eyewitness accounts from residents of Bucha said that the Russian Armed Forces carried out the killings.[36][37][38]
Reports
During the Russian offensive
According to The Kyiv Independent, on 4 March, Russian forces killed three unarmed Ukrainian civilians who were driving back from delivering food to a dog shelter.[46] At around 7:15 a.m. on 5 March, a pair of cars carrying two families trying to escape were spotted by Russian soldiers as the vehicles turned onto Chkalova Street. Russian forces opened fire on the convoy, killing a man in the second vehicle. The front car was hit by a burst of machine-gun fire, instantly killing two children and their mother.[47]
The town's mayor, Anatoliy Fedoruk, had told media outlets about war crimes in the city prior to the town's recapture. On 7 March he had compared the situation in Bucha to a "nightmare" in an interview with the Associated Press, telling the reporters that "we can't even gather up the bodies because the shelling from heavy weapons doesn't stop day or night. Dogs are pulling apart the bodies on the city streets."[48][49] In a 28 March interview with Adnkronos, Fedoruk said Russian forces were guilty of crimes against humanity.[50] He evoked "a plan of terror against the civilian population" and claimed that "here in Bucha we see all the horrors we heard about as crimes committed by the Nazis during Second World War".[51]
Russian units involved
The Ukrainian media published the names of Russian soldiers they alleged were based at Bucha during the occupation.[101][102] On 6 April 2022, CNN cited an unnamed US official as saying that identification of the Russian units involved in the Bucha atrocities was "an extremely high priority" for the US intelligence agencies, which had been using all available tools and assets in their work and were "at the point of 'narrowing down' responsibility".[103] According to a report from Der Spiegel, the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) briefed parliamentarians on 6 April 2022 regarding radio intercepts of Russian soldiers in the area north of Kyiv, linking them to specific atrocities in Bucha. According to the report, the BND provided evidence that an airborne regiment and an army unit were initially responsible for the crimes, and that the Wagner Group later played a leading role in the atrocities. The BND said that the killings were not considered exceptional by the soldiers discussing them, and, according to sources familiar with the intercepts, the atrocities had become a standard element of Russian military activity.[104][105]
Ukrainian activists said that the 64th Motor Rifle Brigade under the command of Lt. Col. Azatbek Omurbekov,[106] a part of the Eastern Military District's 35th Army, was occupying Bucha when the atrocities took place.[107][108][109] Various Ukrainian groups used open-source intelligence to identify the 64th as part of the occupation forces in an effort to track down those responsible.[110] Ukrayinska Pravda, quoting the Ukrainian Intelligence Directorate, said that the 64th was pulled out of the area, with the intention of returning to Ukraine, to the Kharkiv front.[111] In addition, two units of Kadyrovite Chechens, one from the Special Rapid Response Force (SOBR) and a paramilitary riot-control force known as OMON, were involved in the military occupation of Bucha and nearby villages.[112][113] On 19 May 2022, The New York Times reported that documents recovered where Ukrainian men were executed belonged to the 104th Guards Air Assault Regiment and the 234th Guards Air Assault Regiment.[83] An investigation by the Associated Press revealed that the 76th Guards Air Assault Division was running the Russian occupation headquarters at the 144 Yablunska street from where the cleansing operation of Bucha was coordinated. Ukrainian prosecutors are pursuing the commander, Maj. Gen. Sergei Chubarykin, and his boss, Col. Gen. Alexander Chaiko, for their responsibility for the operation.[114]
