Ukraine investigating 6,000 'war crimes': Prosecutor general

AMSTERDAM

Kyiv is investigating 6,000 "war crimes" in areas across Ukraine from where Russia withdrew its troops, the Ukrainian prosecutor general said early Tuesday.

Speaking via videoconference to the Dutch public broadcaster NOS, Iryna Venediktova said Russia aimed to "destroy the Ukrainians," and Russian soldiers received bomb attacks and killing orders against civilians from superiors.

She said the Russians want to intimidate and take over Ukraine with attacks on civilians. "We expect the support of the international community to end the war and punish war criminals," she said.

Venediktova also said she is trying to inspect all the points where possible war crimes were committed, including "war crimes" allegations against Ukrainian soldiers.

Ukrainian President Voldoymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month that abuses committed against innocent civilians in Bucha constitute "war crimes."

He stressed that cars were crushed by tanks and residents were tortured in Bucha, although not all evidence was available.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office announced that police and prosecutors try to record each "war crime" at the scene, noting as of Monday, the number of civilian corpses removed from a mass grave in Bucha and sent to the forensic medicine institution for identification and examination was 46.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said civilian killings in Bucha, allegedly by Russian forces before they recently withdrew from around the national capital of Kyiv, were staged and warned that there would be similar provocations against Russia using chemical weapons in the near future.

More than 4.6 million Ukrainians have fled that country since the start of the war on Feb. 24. Poland has taken more than 2.4 million, with half still in the country.

Russia's war on Ukraine has met international outrage, with the European Union, US, and the UK, among others, implementing severe sanctions on Moscow.

At least 1,842 civilians have been killed and 2,493 injured so far in Ukraine, according to UN estimates, with the true figure feared to be much higher.

*Writing by Jeyhun Aliyev from Ankara