Ukrainian prosecutor investigating potential Bucha war crimes says that Russians left behind a computer server that could help identify perpetrators
- Ukrainian authorities are investigating war crimes in Bucha, a Kyiv suburb that Russia occupied.
- Last week, Ukrainian authorities unearthed a mass grave where more than 300 people had been buried.
The chief regional prosecutor in Bucha, Ukraine, told the New York Times that Russian soldiers left behind a computer server with potentially damning information as investigators are zeroing in on killings and mass graves in the city.
Last week, Ukrainian authorities unearthed a mass grave in the Kyiv suburb, claiming that Russian soldiers killed and buried 360 Ukrainians in a 45-foot-long trench. Journalists who visited Bucha after Russian troops pulled out also reported bodies of civilians in their homes, on the street, and in the suburb's glass factory.
Around 35,000 people live in the northern Kyiv suburb.
"We have already established lists and data of servicemen," prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko told The Times. "This data runs to more than a hundred pages."
Kravchenko added that the killings are being investigated as war crimes and that most of the more than 250 people killed were hit by bullets or shrapnel.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the bodies found in Bucha were "staged," a claim similar to those pushed by Russian propagandists.
Serhiy Kaplychny, who works at Bucha's cemetery, told The Times that only two members of the Ukrainian military were killed and buried in the mass grave. A separate visual investigation by The New York Times found that the mass grave was created before Russia pulled out of the suburb on March 30.
As troops were driven out by Ukrainian forces, videos and photos of atrocities from Bucha flooded the internet.
Kravchenko told The Times that authorities are investigating reports of rape, torture, and executions that took place in Bucha over the month that Russia occupied the city, highlighting that many of the heinous acts were reported to occur at the glass factory.
The Ukrainian government has also set up a website, warcrimes.gov.ua, where citizens and reporters have posted over 7,000 photos and videos related to potential war crimes in Bucha and elsewhere in Ukraine.