Satellite photos show a mass grave dug in Bucha on March 10, long before Russia’s withdrawal

The withdrawal of Russian troops from the Ukrainian city of Bucha left traces of horror and death. Ukrainian authorities, non-governmental organizations and international journalists have confirmed on the ground that hundreds of civilians have been massacred and their bodies left on the streets, many of them in signs of torture. Satellite photos released by the company Maxar show that a mass grave has been dug in the vicinity of one of the churches since March 10. At the time, this city near Kiev was under Russian control, which now denies any responsibility for the deaths of civilians.

Aerial images taken by the American company Maxar Technologies, which capture the terrain with satellite photos from the beginning of the Russian invasion, show an approximately 14-meter-long trench dug around Bucha Church, the site of a mass grave. Discovered after the withdrawal of Russian troops.

According to the company, the first signs of this excavation were observed on March 10 in the church of San Andres. The latest images, from March 31, show the dimension reached by the trench, approximately “14 meters in the southwestern part of the area near the church.”

It is unknown how many bodies may have been buried in this mass grave, but The Moscow Times reports, citing AFP, that at least 57 people were buried here.

Reuters reporters in Bucha reported the presence of a mass grave in the church and said “it was still open” and that “hands and feet were looking at the red clay”, although at this time they did not say whether it was. Is the same temple photographed by Maxar.

The funeral services of the city of Bucha found and buried the bodies of 340 civilians found in its streets, reports the Ukrainian newspaper Pravda. The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine this week assessed the bodies of 410 civilians who have been removed so far after the withdrawal of Russian troops in the northern suburbs of Kiev.

The European Union is “urgently” preparing new sanctions against Russia as a result of “cruelty” in Bucha. The Ukrainian authorities, the European Union and the United States point to the withdrawal of Russian troops from the city as the reason for the killing of innocent people.

While international condemnation continues, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called what Russia was doing on American television last night a “genocide” against the Ukrainian people.

The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reported that the Russian army has committed possible war crimes in areas under its control, including the death penalty for civilians.

Russia denies crimes, says they are “staged”

Russia, for its part, has accused Ukraine of “constructing” Bucha’s history without evidence, thus defending itself against “war crimes” allegations. He claims that this information is a “provocation”That Russian troops left the city on March 30 and that the documentation of the crime did not begin until 31, when the mayor announced the liberation of the city and journalists and organizations were able to see with their own eyes the horror.

Satellite photos indicate that these massive crimes began weeks before they left Russian territory.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov even went so far as to say that the photos and videos of the Bucha killings were a “staging” carried out by Ukraine and spread on the networks by its Western allies.