As images of barbarism on the outskirts of Kiev sparked global terror and demands for war crimes investigations, a Russian retreat that left corpses on the streets also brought new hope to Ukrainians returning to parts of their country. The Canadian government on Sunday condemned what Human Rights Watch called “obvious war crimes” in Bucha, a satellite city in the Ukrainian capital. In this small center and other nearby areas, which have now been abandoned by Russian forces after weeks of intense fighting, civilians were found dead, with their hands tied and shot in the back of the head. The mayor of Boucha told AFP that a recently discovered mass grave contained nearly 300 bodies, including women and a 14-year-old boy. Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said on Twitter that the killings were tantamount to “equine killings of innocent civilians in Ukraine.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called them “unspeakable atrocities”. Russia-Ukraine live news: Rockets hit Ukrainian refinery near Odessa. Ukraine demands new Russian sanctions for Butsa’s assassination Ukraine claims control of Kiev region as Russian forces reorganize to fight in the east of the country “I am deeply shocked by the images of civilians killed in Ukraine,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement. He called for an independent inquiry that “leads to effective accountability”. In a video speech Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russian troops “murderers, torturers, rapists, looters.” “Concentrated evil has visited our land,” he said. Community officials are carrying bags of corpses in a van waiting (invisible) after the Russian bombing of Bucha on April 3. SERGEI SUPINSKY / AFP / Getty Images Meanwhile, on the Polish border, Ukrainian mothers were held hand in hand with their children as they returned to a country from which they had left a few weeks earlier. The exodus from Ukraine continues – more than four million people have now left – but the victory over Russian forces in key parts of the country has made people want to return. About 537,000 Ukrainians have returned, the country’s interior ministry said on Sunday. Last week, 144,000 people left Ukraine and 88,000 entered. “I just want to be home,” said Kristina Matviychuk, who hugged her husband in the Ukrainian border town of Shehyni on Sunday after arriving from Poland with her two young daughters. The situation in her hometown of Ternopil is not bad at the moment, she said. And while he was grateful to the family in Poland who had hosted her for two weeks, he added, “my heart is with my country, Ukraine.” Volodymyr Burka, a volunteer at the train station in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, opened his home to 25 people who fled the country in the weeks following the start of the war. Five have returned now, he said. Some have described difficulties in securing work abroad or even in the right shower. “They say, ‘We are tired,’” Mr Burka said. “A lot of people are coming back.” But it was a full comeback. The success of the Ukrainian army in recapturing more than 30 towns and villages in the Kiev region was unfortunate, tarnished by the scourge and destruction left by Russian troops. In Bukha, Ukrainian soldiers pulled out corpses with wires, fearing they had been trapped by the Russians. President Zelensky, in his video speech, used a series of questions to describe the absurdity of recent discoveries: a man lies dead on a road, riding another bicycle on his feet. a woman whose fingernails were still shining with fiery red varnish on a lifeless hand. “Why were ordinary people tortured to death in an ordinary peaceful city?” Why were the women strangled after the earrings were taken out of their ears? How could women be raped and killed in front of children? How could their corpses be desecrated even after death? “Why did they smash the bodies of people with tanks?” asked. “How did all this become possible?” The Kremlin has denied any wrongdoing, but has accused Ukrainian forces of directing civilian deaths. “During the time that this settlement was under the control of the Russian armed forces, not a single local resident was injured,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. Community officials are collecting the body of a man killed by Russian troops in Bhutan. SERGEY SUPINSKI / AFP / Getty Images Ukrainian authorities have removed the bodies of 410 civilians from cities around Kyiv, said the country’s attorney general, Iryna Venediktova. Across the country, 158 children have been killed since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24 and another 258 have been injured, authorities said. Ukrainian forces regained control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on Saturday, and Dmitry Zivitsky, head of the country’s Sumy region, said Russian forces were withdrawing from the area. But air raid sirens sounded again across Ukraine on Sunday night as the Russian offensive continued. Over the weekend, rockets hit a college in Vasylkiv, south of Kiev. Other rocket attacks hit the Black Sea city of Mykolayiv, destroyed a Poltava oil refinery and damaged what local authorities called “critical infrastructure” in Odessa. Russia has claimed responsibility for the destruction of an oil refinery and a fuel storage facility near Odessa. About 70 percent of Chernihiv and 80 percent of Izium have been destroyed, city officials said. Oleksii Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, warned that Russian troops were preparing for new attacks in the eastern part of the country, including Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv. “They are not going to stop,” Danilov said. Kharkiv is the second largest city in Ukraine, located near the Russian border. It came under heavy attack, including this weekend, when it was hit by Russian artillery, mortars and tank fire. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian army achieved new success in the region, saying that on Sunday it killed most members of a Russian tank regiment operating nearby. Such signs of success were enough to persuade some to return to the city. On Sunday, Natasha Goncharuk, a state accountant, waited on an icy platform in Lviv for a train to Kharkov with her husband and two children. “It’s a quieter place now,” Ms Goncharuk said. “So we decided that Kharkiv is now the best choice for us.” She acknowledged that parts of the city had been turned into “hell”, with the disaster reaching two kilometers from her family home. “We feel fear and nervousness, but it is normal to come back,” he said. “We have a grandmother there.” Hopes for peace have ignited hopes for happiness. Svitlana Maistruk returned to Ukraine from Poland on Saturday to be reunited with her husband in Lviv. The couple got married legally last year, but plans to get married in church in the coming days. Ms Maistruk only has jeans and sneakers for the ceremony, but “it’s a sign that life goes on,” she said. “And we have to organize something to celebrate this life.” However, he said, re-entering Ukraine had caused difficult feelings, especially since her return coincided with horrific revelations from Bucha and elsewhere. Being on Ukrainian soil once again – and woken by the air raid sirens on the first night of her return – has in fact pushed her into a country deeply wounded by the war. “When we crossed the border,” he said, “I realized that I have to face my grief and I have to face this pain.” Our Morning and Afternoon Newsletters are compiled by Globe editors, giving you a brief overview of the day’s most important headlines. Register today.
