Civilian bodies littering streets of Ukrainian town after withdrawal of Russian troops

Bodies of about 20 civilian men have been found strewn across the street in the town of Bucha, northwest of Kyiv after the departure of Russian forces from the area in upsetting pictures published by AFP on Saturday.

The dead, all in civilian clothing, are seen in a variety of awkward poses, some face down against the pavement, others facing upwards with mouths open, CNN reports .

According to AFP journalists who accessed the town after it had been cut off for nearly a month, “Three of them are tangled up in bicycles after taking their final ride, while others, with waxy skin, have fallen next to bullet-ridden and crushed cars”

One body can be seen with his hands tied behind his back with a white cloth.
The Mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, said the dead civilians had received inhumane treatment at the hands of Russian forces.

“Corpses of executed people still line the Yabluska street in Bucha. Their hands are tied behind their backs with white ‘civilian’ rags, they were shot in the back of their heads. So you can imagine what kind of lawlessness they perpetrated here,” Fedoruk told Reuters on Saturday.

According to Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, the bodies of the men found with hands tied, “were shot dead by Russian soldiers,” in a tweet on Saturday.

“These people were not in the military. They had no weapons. They posed no threat. How many more such cases are happening right now in the occupied territories?” he added.

Russian forces vacated from several towns near Kyiv in recent days after Moscow’s bid to encircle the capital failed, with Ukraine declaring that Bucha had been “liberated.”