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Ukrainian authorities claimed to have found mass graves in Bucha, a town outside Kyiv after Russian troops recently withdrew from that area.
However, the retreat has led to global outrage and calls for war crimes investigation over the alleged evidence of mass graves, torture and rape.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin on Monday (April 4) “categorically” rejected accusations that Russian forces were responsible for killing civilians.
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“We categorically reject all allegations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists as quoted by news agencies, suggesting that images of corpses were “fakes”.
“This information must be seriously questioned. From what we have seen, our experts have identified signs of video falsification and other fakes,” Peskov said.
As per Peskov, the evidence presented by the Ukrainian authorities are not matching with the facts and the chronology of the events in Bucha. He also urged international leaders not to rush to judgment.
“The situation is undoubtedly serious and we would ask that many international leaders not rush with their statements, not rush with their baseless accusations, request information from different sources, and at least listen to our explanations,” he added.
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Oleksiy Arestovych, who is an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on Telegram said that the abuse of prisoners constitutes a war crime and should be punished.
“We treat prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Convention despite your personal emotional motivations,” he said to Ukrainian soldiers.
Arestovych also said that Ukrainian troops had found the bodies of civilians, including women who had been raped. They also found bodies of small children.
He added, “There are murdered men whose bodies bear signs of torture. Their hands were tied and they were killed by shots to the back of the head.”
On Monday (April 4), Russia’s chief investigator ordered an official examination of what he called a Ukrainian “provocation”.
Alexander Bastrykin, who is the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, ordered that a probe be opened on the basis that Ukraine had spread “deliberately false information” about Russian armed forces in Bucha, the committee said in a statement.
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(With inputs from agencies)
