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The killing of civilians in the town of Bucha near the Ukrainian capital was a "deliberate massacre", Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Sunday, after the hasty retreat of Russian forces from the area.
"Bucha massacre was deliberate. Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can. We must stop them and kick them out. I demand new devastating G7 sanctions NOW," Mr Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
"Kyiv region. 21st century Hell. Bodies of men and women, who were killed with their hands tied. The worst crimes of Nazism have returned to EU," Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak tweeted.
"This was purposely done by Russia. Impose an embargo on energy resources, close seaports. Stop the murders!"
As Ukraine said its forces , the mayor of a liberated town said 300 residents had been killed during a month-long occupation by the Russian army, and victims were seen in a mass grave and still lying on the streets.
Ukrainian troops have retaken more than 30 towns and villages around Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday, claiming complete control of the capital region for the first time since Russia launched its invasion on 24 February.
At Bucha, a town neighbouring Irpin just 37 km northwest of the capital, Reuters journalists saw bodies lying in the streets and the hands and feet of multiple corpses poking out of a still-open grave at a church ground.
Bodies of civilians lie scattered on a street in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, as Ukraine says Russian forces are making a "rapid retreat" from northern areas around Kyiv on 2 April, 2022. Source: Getty / RONALDO SCHEMIDT, via AFP
"Shocked by haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army in Kyiv liberated region #BuchaMassacre," European Council head Michel wrote on Twitter.
"EU is assisting Ukraine & NGO's in gathering of necessary evidence for pursuit in international courts."
British Foreign Minister Liz Truss said that as evidence mounted of "appalling acts" in the Ukrainian towns of Irpin and Bucha, Russia's attacks on civilians must be investigated as "war crimes".
After more than five weeks of fighting, Russia has pulled back forces that had threatened Kyiv from the north to regroup for battles in eastern Ukraine and potentially the south.
"The whole Kyiv region is liberated from the invader," Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar wrote on Facebook on Saturday.
There was no Russian comment on the claim, which Reuters could not immediately verify.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in a video address: "They are mining all this territory. Houses are mined, equipment is mined, even the bodies of dead people." He did not cite evidence.
Ukraine's emergencies service said more than 1,500 explosives had been found in one day during a search of the village of Dmytrivka, west of the capital.
Russia's defence ministry did not reply to a request for comment on the allegations about mines. Reuters could not independently verify them. Moscow denies targeting civilians and rejects war crimes allegations.
Bodies on streets, hundreds buried in mass graves
In Bucha, Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk said . Many residents tearfully recalled brushes with death.
"The bastards!" Mr Vasily, a 66-year-old man said, weeping with rage as he looked at more than a dozen bodies lying in the road outside his house, his face disfigured with grief.
"I’m sorry. The tank behind me was shooting. Dogs!"
"We were sitting in the cellar for two weeks. There was food but no light, no heating to warm up. "We put the water on candles to warm it ... We slept in felt boots."
Residents said they had been killed by the Russian troops during their month-long occupation.
To Mr Vasily's left, one man lay against a grass verge next to his bicycle, his face sallow and eyes sunken. Another lay in the middle of the road, a few metres from his front door. Mr Vasily said it was his son's godfather, a lifelong friend.
Bucha's still-unburied dead wore no uniforms. They were civilians with bikes, their stiff hands still gripping bags of shopping. Some had clearly been dead for many days, if not weeks.
For the most part, they were whole, and it was unclear whether they had been killed by shrapnel, a blast or a bullet - but one had the top of his head missing.
A boy looks at a destroyed Russian tank after recent battles in Bucha, close to Kyiv on 1 April 2022. Credit: AAP
It was not clear why they had not yet been buried.
Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk said more than 300 residents of the town had been killed, and a mass grave at one church ground was still open, with hands and feet poking through the red clay heaped on top.
Several streets were strewn with the mangled wrecks of burned-out Russian tanks and armoured vehicles. Unexploded rockets lay on the road and, in one spot, an unexploded mortar shell poked out of the tarmac.
A column of Ukrainian tanks patrolled, flying blue and yellow national flags. One resident who had survived the ordeal hugged a soldier, and gave the military battle-cry: "Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes!"
'We don't want them to come back'
Mariya Zhelezova, 74, worked as a cleaner at an airplane factory whose poor health stopped her leaving before the Russians came.
Walking with her 50-year-old daughter Iryna, she tearfully recalled brushes with death.
"The first time, I went out of the room and a bullet broke the glass, the window, and got stuck in the dresser," she said. "The second time, shattered glass almost got into my leg.
"The third time, I was walking and didn’t know he was standing with a rifle and the bullets went right past me. When I got home, I couldn’t speak."
She removed a white cloth armband that she said residents had been ordered to wear.
"We don’t want them to come back," she said. "I had a dream today - that they left, and didn’t come back."
The Kremlin and the Russian defence ministry in Moscow did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
An elderly woman embraces an Ukranian soldier in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv. Source: Getty / RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images
Putin-Zelenskyy talks?
Since the launch of what President Vladimir Putin called a "special military operation" to demilitarise and "denazify" Ukraine, Russia has failed to capture a single major city and has instead laid siege to urban areas, uprooting a quarter of the country's population.
Russia has depicted its drawdown of forces near Kyiv as a goodwill gesture in peace talks. Ukraine and its allies say Russia was forced to shift its focus to east Ukraine after suffering heavy losses.
Both sides described talks last week in Istanbul and by video link as "difficult". Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday the "main thing is that the talks continue, either in Istanbul or somewhere else".
Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said on Saturday that enough progress had been made for direct talks between Mr Putin and Mr Zelenskyy.
But Russia's chief negotiator said a draft agreement was not ready to be sent to a top-level meeting although he said Ukraine was showing more realism by agreeing to be neutral, renouncing nuclear weapons, not joining a military bloc and refusing to host military bases.
But on Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and two Russian-backed rebel regions, which Mr Putin recognised as independent in February, Vladimir Medinsky indicated there had been no progress.
"I repeat again and again: Russia's position on Crimea and Donbas remains UNCHANGED," he said on Telegram.
Talks via videoconference would continue on Monday, he said.
Mariupol waits
Among those killed near Kyiv was Maksim Levin, a Ukrainian photographer and videographer who was working for a news website and was a long-time contributor to Reuters.
In the east, the on Sunday, having abandoned earlier attempts due to security concerns. Russia blamed the ICRC for the delays.
Mariupol is Russia's main target in Ukraine's southeastern region of Donbas, and tens of thousands of civilians there are trapped with scant access to food and water.
British military intelligence said Russian naval forces maintained a blockade of the Ukrainian coast along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, but the option of amphibious landings were becoming increasingly high-risk for Russia.
It said reported mines, the origin of which remained unclear and disputed, posed a serious risk to shipping in the Black Sea.
