Liberated towns outside of Bucha may have faced even higher civilian casualties under Russian occupation, Ukrainian authorities have warned.
It comes as atrocities in the town on the outskirts have Kyiv prompted outcry from world leaders with unarmed civilians found with their hands tied behind their backs with close-range gunshot wounds, as well as a mass grave in a churchyard.
In a televised address to the nation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he believed at least 300 civilians had been killed by Russian troops in Bucha alone.
“And this is only one town: one of many Ukrainian communities which the Russian forces managed to capture,” he said.
“Now, there is information that in Borodyanka and some other liberated Ukrainian towns, the number of casualties of the occupiers may be much higher.”
Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said the number of civilian victims in Borodyanka – another town in Kyiv Oblast – is likely to be higher than in Bucha.
“The worst situation in terms of the victims is there,” she said. The town is further away from the capital than Bucha, and was also being held by Russian soldiers until their recent withdrawal.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Monday that “the horrors we’ve seen in Bucha are just the tip of the iceberg” of all the “crimes” committed by the Russian army in Ukraine so far.
He added that the situation in Mariupol was “much worse” than the atrocities documented in towns near to Kyiv which have already been reached by Ukrainian forces.
It comes as Kremlin denials of any violence towards civilians by Russian troops were undermined by a new analysis of satellite images.
The New York Times has matched up images showing bodies on the ground with a video taken by a resident on 11 March, when Russia was still occupying the town, suggesting the bodies had been there for weeks.
A second video showing three bodies was also matched up to a satellite image, appearing to show that the bodies were there before Russian soldiers retreated.
More on Ukraine
President Zelensky is set to tell an emergency meeting of the United Nations security council what he witnessed on the ground in Bucha yesterday.
He is also expected to demand new sanctions on Russia over the killings, which he has described as “genocide”.
The US and the UK have announced plans to seek Russia’s suspension from the UN’s human rights council following the allegations that civilians were massacred by troops in Bucha.
Jimmy Carter was right about Israel