“We thought you were alive,” Vladimir shouts. Inside the tomb, the bodies are stacked on top of each other, mostly in black bags, but some with the limbs protruding. Only a few are buried. A CNN team saw at least a dozen bodies in the mass grave, but the earth shows signs of recent movement, suggesting that much more could be found below. Kyiv regional police and locals say they believe at least 150 people were buried in the mass grave, but Bucha mayor says the death toll could rise to 300. CNN has not been able to independently verify their allegations. Vladimir picks up, comforted by his wife, Anna, and a neighbor, Lyubov, and leaves. He says he thinks his brother is buried there, but the sad reality is that he can not know for sure – and he may not for long. Residents say the tomb, behind the church of St. Andrew and Pyervozvannoho of All Saints, began to be dug early in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as was the death toll in this lush Kiev suburb. Satellite images from Maxar dating from March 10 show the ditch that has already been dug. As Russian forces retreat from the area around Kyiv, the horror of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is becoming more and more apparent. The death and destruction caused by the Russian war machine are fully displayed in Bucha, where corpses are seen on the streets of the suburb as early as Sunday. Some had their hands tied behind their backs. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has blamed Russia for the killings inside the region, accusing Moscow of trying to put an end to “its entire nation”. “This is the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities,” he said in an interview with CBS “Face the Nation” on Sunday. Russia, for its part, has denied any involvement, saying it was not targeting civilians and saying the images of corpses in the streets of Bhutan were false. Inside the area, roads are littered with damaged Russian armor – including tanks – ambushed by Ukrainian drones or NATO-supplied missile launchers such as the Javelins and Light Anti-Aircraft Weapons. In some cases, entire columns of Russian armor were trapped in narrow residential streets before being destroyed. “They thought they could just drive on the streets and cross. That they would be greeted as if they were okay to come here,” said Valery Spichek, a Ukrainian National Police officer. “They may think it is normal for looting to take place, to destroy buildings and to make fun of people.” “But ours did not allow it,” he added. The vehicles are now rusting where they left off, evidence of the heavy losses Moscow suffered before being expelled from the area around Kyiv. The devastation is spreading to most buildings and other infrastructure around it, with few houses left intact, most of them uninhabitable after Russia’s attack on the capital. The scene in Bucha is similar to what CNN could see in other areas around Kyiv, such as Irpin, Myla, Hostomel and north as Bordyanka. In the latter, entire high-rise buildings were demolished by artillery shells as Ukrainians and Russians fought for control of the area. Authorities say they fear there are bodies under the rubble and that the actual number of dead is still impossible to measure.
