Ukraine’s prosecutor-general has said the bodies of 410 civilians have been recovered from areas in the wider Kyiv region from which Russian forces withdrew.
Ukraine has accused the Russian military of massacring residents of Bucha, a town northwest of the capital Kyiv, an area Ukrainian troops said they recaptured on Saturday.
The announcement was made on television by Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of carrying out a genocide in his country.
“Indeed, this is genocide. The elimination of the whole nation and the people,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” news programme.
The mayor of a recently liberated Ukrainian city has accused Russian troops of deliberately killing civilians during their month-long occupation of his town.
The mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, showed two corpses to Reuters correspondents, with white cloth tied around their arms which he said was what residents were forced to wear by fighters from Chechnya, a region in southern Russia that has deployed troops to Ukraine to support Russian forces.
One corpse had his hands bound by the white cloth, and appeared to have been shot in the mouth, the agency said.
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has accused Russia of carrying out a deliberate “massacre” in the town of Bucha, outside Kyiv, and called on the G7 to impose “devastating” new sanctions on Moscow.
“Dead bodies lie on the streets. They killed civilians while staying there and when they were leaving these villages and towns,” his ministry quoted him as saying on Twitter.
Russia has so far not commented publicly on the claims. Moscow has previously repeatedly denied Ukrainian claims that it has targeted civilians.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he was “deeply shocked” by images of dead civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, and called for an independent investigation that “leads to effective accountability”.
Guterres posted his comments on Twitter a day after witnesses and officials said that Russian troops killed hundreds of civilians as they withdrew from the town near Kyiv.
“I am deeply shocked by the images of civilians killed in Bucha, Ukraine,” Guterres said, joining Western officials in expressing outrage.
“It is essential that an independent investigation leads to effective accountability,” he said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said images of dead Ukrainian civilians found in the town of Bucha after Russian troops left were a “punch in the gut” and those responsible for any war crimes must be held accountable.
The European Union must impose harsher sanctions on Russia and supply Ukraine with more arms, Poland’s prime minister has said, as he called for an international tribunal to investigate killings in the town of Bucha.
“The crimes Russia has committed on close to 300 inhabitants of Bucha and other towns outside Kyiv must be called acts of genocide and be dealt with as such,” Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on Facebook.
“Everyone responsible – directly or indirectly – must be severely punished by an international tribunal.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has condemned the “egregious and appalling” killings of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, saying Russia must be held to account.
“We strongly condemn the murder of civilians in Ukraine, remain committed to holding the Russian regime accountable,” Trudeau wrote on Twitter.
“Those responsible for these egregious and appalling attacks will be brought to justice,” he added.
French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has said that he firmly condemned what he called the “massive abuses” committed by Russian forces in Ukraine in the recent weeks.
Le Drian mentioned in particular the town of Bucha outside Kyiv, where Ukrainian authorities say a deliberate “massacre” was carried out by Russia.
Germany’s foreign minister has said Russia must pay for its “war crimes” in the Ukrainian town of Bucha just outside the capital in the form of more severe sanctions, denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “uninhibited violence.”
Meanwhile, Russia has denied Ukrainian allegations that it had killed civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, describing footage and photographs of dead bodies as a “provocation” and a “staged performance” by Kyiv.
