Ten more bodies found in a mass grave in Bucha

Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday found ten lifeless bodies in a mass grave in Bucha, west of Kiev, where Russian troops committed a massacre during their occupation.  

The discovery of the mass graves in Bucha, from which the Russians withdrew last week, has been described by Ukraine's Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova as "crimes against humanity". 

The exhumation of the bodies came on the same day that around 20 members of the French gendarmerie went to Bucha for a 15-day investigation into Russian crimes.  

According to the prosecutor, who made a statement to the media from the exhumation site, 250 dead have so far been found since the occupation by Russian troops began on 3 March, while some 67 bodies have been found in mass graves. 

Members of the French gendarmerie were analysing the ten new bodies exhumed today, some of which were completely burnt, according to Efe, and transferred them to a vehicle for further tests. 

"It is very important to have decisions from the International Criminal Court or other international courts. That is why it is very important that investigators and experts from other jurisdictions have the possibility to come to Ukraine," Venediktova said of the first visit by the experts. 

The prosecutor said that the bodies found today "were shelled" and have not yet been identified, something that "the team of Ukrainian investigators or, perhaps, French experts" will take care of. 

"Here in the Kiev region we see a lot of war crimes and we can qualify them as crimes against humanity," said Venediktova, who said that "millions of displaced people" are witnesses to these atrocities. 

She said her team believes that "the main person responsible" for the barbarity "is the president of the Russian Federation, of course". 

"He (Russian President Vladimir Putin) started this war, he continued it and his soldiers killed Ukrainian civilians," she said. 

According to the latest figures, the bodies of 1,222 civilians killed by Russian troops have been found in the Kiev region alone, which includes the country's capital.