Russian Army Committed 9,000 Crimes, Killed 1,400 Civilians In A Month While Occupying Bucha

A Ukrainian official has revealed the horrific extent of atrocities committed by Russian forces during their month-long occupation of Bucha in the early stage of the war.

Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said that between February 27 and March 31, 2022, the Russian military committed more than 9,000 war crimes, or approximately 270 per day.

He said that throughout the 33 days of the Russian occupation of Bucha, more than 1,400 Ukrainians were killed, and most were tortured to death. Russian troops also killed at least 37 children.

"I'm convinced all these crimes are no accident. This is part of Russia's planned strategy aimed at destroying Ukraine as a state and Ukrainians as a nation," Kostin said on his Facebook page.

Kostin said they had considered almost a hundred Russian soldiers as suspects in the Bucha killings and had already indicted 35 of them.

"Among them is a colonel general, commander of the Central Military District of the Russian Federation, who directly controlled the occupation of Sumy, Chernihiv and Kiev regions," Kostin said.

The Ukrainian prosecutor general also noted that 2 Russian soldiers were sentenced to 12 years of jail for illegally imprisoning Ukrainians and looting.

A year after the world learned about the gruesome killings of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky remembered the tragic event by hailing Ukrainians' resistance against Russia's invading force.

"People of Ukraine! You have stopped the biggest force against humanity of our time," Zelensky said, adding, "You have stopped a force that despises everything and wants to destroy everything that gives people meaning."

The Ukrainian president vowed to "liberate all our lands" as the Russian invasion of Ukraine entered its 14th month.

On April 2, 2022, a few days after Russian troops withdrew from Bucha, several journalists visited the war-torn town and discovered 20 bodies in civilian clothing, some with their hands tied behind their backs.

Soldiers of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces said they had found at least 18 bodies that were mutilated, including children. Some of the discovered bodies had their ears cut off or had their teeth pulled out, U.K.-based The Times reported.

Journalists from the Associated Press also saw charred bodies, including a body of a child and one with a bullet hole in the skull.

In his first visit to Bucha, Zelensky described the killings as "genocide," while some Ukrainian officials and western countries accused Russia of committing war crimes.

The international community condemned the ghastly scenes at Bucha, which led to the revocation of Russia's membership at the U.N. Human Rights Council following a resolution filed by the United States.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the situation in Bucha another "fake attack" staged by Ukraine and its allies.