Ukraine war: Boris Johnson pleads with Russians to seek out ‘the truth’ of Putin’s war

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Boris Johnson tonight directly appealed to Russians in their own language to seek out ‘the truth’ of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, calling alleged atrocities in Bucha a ‘stain’ on the country’s global standing and warning: ‘History will remember who looked the other way’.

In a video message posted online, the British Prime Minister urged the Russian public to get round Putin’s repressive controls on the media by seeking out for themselves ‘the truth’ of what was happening from independent news outlets online.

Grisly images of what are claimed to be civilian massacres allegedly carried out by Russian forces in Bucha before they withdrew from the outskirts of Kyiv have stirred a global outcry in recent days, and prompted Western nations to expel dozens of Moscow’s diplomats and propose further sanctions, including a ban on coal imports from Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of committing ‘genocide’ in Ukraine, comparing Moscow’s military to the Islamic State terror group in a video address to the UN Security Council and demanding that Putin be brought to justice for his alleged atrocities. 

The Kremlin claimed the images of civilians were ‘fake news’ and ‘a crude forgery’ staged by the Ukrainians themselves. Moscow’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia insisted that while Bucha was under Russian control, ‘not a single local person has suffered from any violent action’. He added: ‘You only saw what they showed you. The only ones who would fall for this are Western dilettantes.’

In his message on Tuesday night, Johnson said the reports were so shocking that Putin had deliberately sought to hide the truth from his people, adding: ‘Your president knows that if you could see what was happening, you would not support his war.

‘He knows that these crimes betray the trust of every Russian mother who proudly waves goodbye to her son as he heads off to join the military. And he knows they are a stain on the honour of Russia itself. A stain that will only grow larger and more indelible every day this war continues.’

Johnson said that people only needed a VPN connection to access independent information from around the world: ‘When you find the truth, share it. Those responsible will be held to account. And history will remember who looked the other way.’

Speaking in Russian, he added: ‘Your president stands accused of committing war crimes. But I cannot believe he’s acting in your name’. 

It comes as Zelensky accused the Russians of gruesome atrocities in Ukraine and told UN Security Council members that civilians had been shot in the back of the head after being tortured, blown up with grenades in their apartments and crushed to death by tanks while in cars.

‘They cut off limbs, cut their throats. Women were raped and killed in front of their children. Their tongues were pulled out only because their aggressor did not hear what they wanted to hear from them,’ he said.

‘Anyone who has given criminal orders and carried them out by killing our people will be brought before the tribunal which should be similar to the Nuremberg tribunals.’ 

Making his first appearance before the UN’s highest body, Zelensky said the Russian troops are no different from other terrorists like the so-called Islamic State group. He showed the council brief video footage of bloody corpses that ended with the words ‘Stop Russian Aggression’.

He stressed that Bucha was only one place and there are more with similar horrors, and called for a tribunal similar to the one set up at Nuremberg to try war criminals after the Second World War.

The grisly scenes of battered and burned bodies and evidence that some of the dead were bound and shot in the head have led western nations to expel dozens more of Moscow’s diplomats and propose further sanctions, including a ban on coal imports from Russia.

The head of NATO warned that Russia is regrouping its forces to deploy them to eastern and southern Ukraine for a ‘crucial phase of the war’, and said more horrors may come to light as Russian troops continue to pull back in the north.

‘When and if they withdraw their troops and Ukrainian troops take over, I’m afraid they will see more mass graves, more atrocities and more examples of war crimes,’ Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.

Ukrainian officials claim the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv that were recaptured from Russian forces and a ‘torture chamber’ was discovered in Bucha.

Zelensky told the Security Council there was ‘not a single crime’ that Russian troops had not committed in Bucha.

‘The Russian military searched for and purposefully killed anyone who served our country. They shot and killed women outside their houses when they just tried to call someone who is alive. They killed entire families, adults and children, and they tried to burn the bodies,’ he said.

Police and other investigators walked the silent streets of Bucha on Tuesday, taking notes on bodies.

Associated Press journalists in the town counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes. Many appeared to have been shot at close range, and some had their hands bound or their flesh burned. A mass grave in a churchyard held bodies wrapped in plastic. 

The Kremlin denounced the images as fake and suggested the scenes were staged by the Ukrainians, but high-resolution satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed that many of the bodies had been lying in the open for weeks, during the time Russian forces were in the town.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed the images from Bucha revealed ‘a deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities’. He said the reports were ‘more than credible’ and the US and other countries will seek to hold the culprits accountable.

As western leaders condemned the killings in Bucha, Italy, Spain and Denmark expelled dozens of Russian diplomats, following moves by Germany and France. Hundreds of Russian diplomats have been sent home since the start of the invasion, many accused of being spies.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the expulsions a ‘short-sighted’ measure that would complicate communication and warned they would be met with ‘reciprocal steps’.

In another show of support, the European Union’s executive branch proposed a ban on coal imports from Russia, in what would be the first sanctions from the bloc targeting the country’s lucrative energy industry over the war. The coal imports amount to an estimated 4 billion euros (£3.3billion) per year. 

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the EU needed to increase the pressure on Putin after what she described as ‘heinous crimes’ carried out around Kyiv, with evidence that Russian troops may have deliberately killed Ukrainian civilians.

She did not mention natural gas, with consensus among the 27 EU member countries on targeting the fuel used to generate electricity and heat homes more difficult to secure.

The EU gets about 40% of its natural gas from Russia, and many EU countries, including Germany – the bloc’s largest economy – are opposed to cutting off gas imports.

So far, Europe had not been willing to target Russian energy over fears that it would plunge the European economy into recession but the recent reports of civilian killings have increased pressure for tougher EU sanctions.

The US and the UK previously announced they were cutting off Russian oil, Poland said it plans to block imports of coal and oil from Russia, while Lithuania said it is no longer using Russian natural gas. 

‘To take a clear stand is not only crucial for us in Europe but also for the rest of the world,’ Von der Leyen said. ‘A clear stand against Putin’s war of choice. A clear stand against the massacre of civilians. And a clear stand against the violation of the fundamental principles of the world order.’

Other measures proposed by the EU’s executive arm include sanctions on more individuals and four key Russian banks, including the second-largest, VTB.

‘These four banks, which we now totally cut off from the markets, represent 23% of market share in the Russian banking sector,’ Von der Leyen said. ‘This will further weaken Russia’s financial system.’

If the proposal is adopted unanimously by all 27 EU countries, the new package of sanctions would also ban Russian vessels and Russian-operated vessels from EU ports, with exceptions for essentials such as agricultural and food products, and humanitarian aid and energy.

Further targeted export bans worth 10 billion euros (£8.3 billion) have been proposed in sectors covering quantum computers, advanced semiconductors, sensitive machinery and transportation equipment.

Von der Leyen said: ‘With this, we will continue to degrade Russia’s technological base and industrial capacity.’

According to EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, 62% of Russia’s exports to the EU were hydrocarbons last year.

‘If we really want to affect Russia’s economy, that’s where we need to look,’ he said. ‘And that’s exactly what is subject to discussions concerning this sanctions package.’

Because of its climate ambitions, the EU has been moving away from coal. Coal use fell from 1.2 billion tons a year to 427 million tons between 1990 and 2020, but imports rose from 30% to 60% of coal use.

The European Union gets about 25% of its oil from Russia, while the EU imported 53% of hard coal from the country in 2020, which accounted for 30% of the EU’s hard coal consumption.

Russian coal would be easier to replace than Russian gas because coal comes by ship and there are multiple global suppliers. Germany’s association of coal importers said in March that Russian coal could be replaced ‘in a few months’.

Analysts at the Bruegel think tank said in March that Germany and Poland were particularly reliant on Russian coal for power generation and that ‘Russian coal can be replaced because global markets are well supplied and flexible’.

But they added that ‘replacing Russian coal imports will require the lightspeed deployment of new supply chains to bring the right type of coal where it is needed. Most European coal users already source from different suppliers and should be able to build on existing relationships’.

But the switch would mean more import demand from Europe and higher global coal prices, with significant effects on emerging and developed economies that also rely on coal.

Drone video shows Russian tank ‘opening fire on a cyclist’ in Bucha at spot where bodies were later found strewn across the street

The moment Russian tanks appeared to open fire on a cyclist in the town of Bucha was captured on video by a drone, in potentially more damning evidence of war crimes carried out by Putin’s forces in Ukraine.

Footage of the attack in the Kyiv Oblast town shows a man walking his bicycle up a street, apparently unaware that several Russian tanks lay in wait around the corner.

Another video purportedly showed the aftermath of the attack after Bucha was reclaimed from Moscow’s clutches in recent days. In it, a person believed to be the same man can be seen dead on the side of the road next to his bicycle.

In the first video, captured on March 3, the drone appears to be watching the Russian tank column, but the footage also tracks the man as he is walking up the road that runs through a neighbourhood of destroyed or damaged buildings.

The operator of the drone repeatedly pans upwards, showing a long queue of military vehicles – including tanks, armoured personnel carriers and trucks – positioned between buildings, on the next street over from the man.

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES – Scroll down for video 

As the cyclist continues down the street – first on his bicycle and then on foot, pushing it along side him – the drone focuses more on his movement up the road.

He is shown nearing a junction in the road and turns left down a narrower street, where an armoured vehicle and a tank are positioned around 150ft away.

As soon as he turns the corner into the side road, a flash is seen from the armoured vehicle’s turret, and a rocket is shown flying through the air.

The video shows the armoured vehicle opening fire, letting off several more shots in the direction of where the man entered the side road.

After several blasts, the camera zooms in, and a larger flash is also seen when the tank – positioned parallel to the armoured vehicle – also fires in the man’s direction.

By this point in the video, the view of the man has been obstructed by a tree and some fencing after he turned the corner.

However, another video taken on the street – shared by investigative agency Bellingcat and captured some time later – reportedly showed the same junction after the attack. A man, said to be the same as in the first video, can be seen dead – slumped on the side of the road with his bicycle.

On his approach, the cyclist appeared to slow down before reaching the junction. It is not clear if he knew where the Russian vehicles were positioned as he turned the corner. The Russian vehicle fired on him almost immediately.

In recent days, Ukraine’s forces have re-entered Bucha and other towns in the surrounding area after pushing Russia’s forces back, away from the capital of Kyiv. 

In the days since, a horrific picture of death and destruction has begun to emerge from the town. But while images and videos have largely shown the aftermath of the Russian occupation – with bodies strewn throughout the town – this drone footage appears to be one of the few videos showing Russian forces actively attacking Ukrainian civilians. 

Release of the footage came after satellite images of Bucha showed bodies lining the streets more than two weeks ago – debunking Russian claims that the massacre was staged by Kyiv in order to frame its troops for war crimes. 

The images taken of Bucha on March 19 show dark objects strewn along a road – which match the exact positions where the rotting corpses of civilians were found by Ukrainian soldiers who recaptured the area from Russian forces at the weekend.

Russian forces were in control of the city at the time, strongly suggesting that it was Putin‘s men – and not Kyiv’s – who carried out the killings. 

Kyiv now says at least 410 civilians were massacred in and around Bucha by the Russians while others were tortured and raped in what President Volodymyr Zelensky has described as ‘genocide’.

Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, insisted at a news conference that during the time that Bucha was under Russian control ‘not a single local person has suffered from any violent action’.

But the satellite imagery from commercial provider Maxar Technologies, first reported by The New York Times, proved the bodies had been there for weeks.

Western and Ukrainian leaders have accused Russia of war crimes before, and the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor has already opened an investigation. But the latest reports ratcheted up the condemnation.

Zelensky, who appeared shattered on a visit to the area yesterday, will today address the UN Security Council where he is expected to push world leaders to impose tougher sanctions on Russia over the atrocities, send more weapons for his armed forces, and for a war crimes probe to punish the Russian commanders responsible.

In a nightly address to the Ukrainian nation on Tuesday, he said that Western sanctions on Russia ‘must finally be powerful’ – adding: ‘Did hundreds of our people have to die in agony for some European leaders to finally understand that the Russian state deserves the most severe pressure?’

He was also critical of the amount of military aid sent to Ukraine so-far, saying more equipment could have helped save civilian lives. ‘I do not blame you – I blame only the Russian military,’ he said. ‘But you could have helped.’

Ukraine’s allies have called the killings in Bucha war crimes, with the EU offering to send investigators to gather evidence. ‘(Russian President Vladimir Putin) is a war criminal,’ US President Biden told reporters at the White House. ‘What’s happening to Bucha is outrageous and everyone’s seen it.’

The White House said it would announce fresh sanctions on Moscow ‘this week’ with France suggesting new measures could target Russian oil and coal exports. But Germany warned it was too soon to cut off Russian gas.

‘We have to cut all economic relationship to Russia, but at the moment, it’s not possible to cut the gas supplies. We need some time,’ German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said.

Elsewhere, the United States and Britain said they would seek Russia’s suspension from the UN Human Rights Council – a move Moscow branded ‘unbelievable’.

Russia has cynically asked for the Security Council to convene to discuss what it describes as Ukrainian attempts to stage a massacre in order to frame its troops, but Britain – which currently chairs the council – has refused.   

The full nature of the killings in Bucha and other areas from which Russian troops have withdrawn is still being pieced together.

On Monday, the bodies of five men were found in a children’s sanatorium basement in Bucha. The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said they were unarmed civilians, who had been bound, beaten and killed by Russian troops.

And in Motyzhyn, west of Kyiv, Ukrainian police showed AFP journalists the bodies of five civilians with their hands tied, including those of the village’s mayor, her husband and son.

Ukrainian officials say over 400 civilian bodies have been recovered from the Kyiv region, many of whom have been laid to rest in mass graves.

But Zelensky has warned that the deaths in Bucha could be only the tip of the iceberg, saying he had information even more people had been killed in places like nearby Borodianka.

AFP reporters who briefly visited the area saw no bodies in the streets, but locals reported many deaths.

‘I know five civilians were killed,’ said 58-year-old Rafik Azimov. ‘But we don’t know how many more are left in the basements of the ruined buildings after the bombardments.’

‘I buried six people,’ another resident, Volodymyr Nahornyi, said. ‘More people are under the ruins.’

The Russian withdrawal from Kyiv has been seen as a pivot to a renewed offensive in the country’s east and south, where Moscow wants to consolidate territory around occupied Crimea and the separatist statelets of Donetsk and Lugansk.

The Ukrainian government has warned Moscow is preparing a ‘full-scale’ attack in the country’s east and regional officials urged civilians to evacuate Lugansk fearing a major Russian attack.

The Pentagon estimates Russia has withdrawn about two thirds of the troops it had around Kyiv and will redeploy them to the east and south, with the White House warning the war’s ‘next phase could be measured in months or longer.’

Even where troops have withdrawn, fears remain, with Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko telling residents to wait before returning, citing the danger of continued shelling and the danger of unexploded munitions. 

The horrors of Bucha laid bare: Man’s cheek was cut out before he was shot in the heart while another was burned with a flamethrower, as ‘torture chamber’ is uncovered inside a children’s hospital

A man who had his cheek cut out before being shot in the heart, another who was kidnapped and burned with a flamethrower, and a ‘torture chamber’ filled with bodies inside a children’s hospital: These are just a handful of horrors inflicted on the Ukrainian city of Bucha as the full brutality of Putin’s army is laid bare.

Survivors of a month-long Russian occupation – endured in cold, dark silence after Putin’s troops cut off all links with the outside world – are just now starting to emerge from basements and makeshift bunkers to tell tales of the extraordinary suffering they were made to endure. 

Vladislav Kozlovsky, who returned to Bucha at the outbreak of war to care for his mother and grandmother, told The Telegraph how two men he knew had tried to escape through an abandoned glass factory but were found by the Russians. One was shot in the back of the head. The other had his cheek cut out before being shot in the heart.

Volodymyr Pilhutskyi, another Bucha resident, recounted how his neighbour was taken away by Russian troops because he was wearing military-style trousers which were deemed ‘suspicious’. He was tortured and killed, Mr Pilhutskyi said, with burn marks from a flamethrower found on his body.

Ukrainian armed forces say they have now uncovered a Russian torture chamber, located inside a children’s hospital that was also being used as a makeshift barracks. The bodies of five men were found shot to death in the basement, a spokesman said, with their hands tied behind their backs. Some had been tortured.

Graphic images taken by Ukrainian prosecutors show the bodies of the men lying on a rubble floor surrounded by pools of dried blood. At least one appears to have been shot through the kneecap.

Visiting the region on Monday, a shattered President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced what he called ‘genocide’ by Russian forces, adding that ‘we know of thousands of people killed and tortured, with severed limbs, raped women and murdered children … dead people have been found in barrels, basements, strangled, tortured.’

Bucha first came under attack by Russian forces trying to push into Kyiv in the early days of the war, and was the scene of fierce fighting that left streets filled with the charred husks of dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles – as well as the bodies of their crew.

The city was fully under Russian control by early March and endured occupation by Putin’s men until last week when troops began withdrawing, having failed in their aim to assault the Ukrainian capital. Over the weekend, Kyiv’s men moved in to reclaim the region. It was during this time that the stories began to emerge.

Sergei Malyk told The Independent how Russian troops shot his 89-year-old neighbour, Alla Minorava, in her bed on March 25.  ‘They did not say why they had shot her,’ he recalled. It is difficult to think of a reason… A lot of the killings here make no sense, they killed other old people like her, and young boys and girls.’

Taras Shevchenko, a kindergarten martial arts teacher, recounted another such killed to The Guardian. He said an elderly couple – husband and wife – had been stopped by Russian troops while crossing the road. When the old man gave an ‘aggressive’ answer to one of their questions, he was shot dead.

‘To the woman they said: ‘You just keep walking.’ She rushed to her husband and started crying, and they said: ‘If you want to lie next to him, we can shoot you too.’ She told them she needed to take the body, but they said: ‘No, just keep walking.’ And she kept on walking, crying and walking.’

Shevchenko said those who remained in the city were forbidden from going to collect the bodies for burial, and so had to endure the sight and smell of them decomposing for weeks on end. 

Dimitrou Zamohylny recalled seeing flocks of crows pecking out the eyes of the corpses. Sergei Simolenskiy, a veteran of the Russian marines who now lives in Ukraine, told how he witnessed a stray dog eating a dead man’s head. Others told how bodies had been run over by Russian tanks and squashed ‘like animal rugs’.

Kateryna Ukraintseva, a city councillor and Ukraine defence force volunteer, relayed stories she had been told of Russian cruelty. In one case, she told The Telegraph, troops had found people hiding in a basement. They shared dried food with them, but then threw in a grenade. She could not say how many people died in that attack.

While the horrors of Bucha have shocked and appalled many in the West, there are now warnings from Ukraine that worse is to come. Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova has warned that the ‘worst’ of the human casualties are actually located in Borodyanka, a town located some 15 miles further from Kyiv than Bucha.

A ‘similar humanitarian situation’ to Bucha also exists in the cities of Chernihiv and Sumy, which were surrounded and cut off by Russian forces early in the war – which have now retreated. She did not go into details about exactly what had happened there.

Dymtryo Kuleba, the foreign secretary, has also warned that the situation in the southern city of Mariupol – which has been almost totally destroyed by Russian forces which are still fighting street-to-street in an attempt to seize it – is likely to be worse still.

In villages north of Mykolaiv, a southern Ukrainian city around 250 miles to the west of Mariupol, villagers tell stories of similar horrors to those inflicted on the people of Bucha. Tatiana Bozhiko explained to the Washington Post how her husband, Serhii, was taken prisoner by the Russians – ostensibly for supporting the Azov Battalion which is defending Mariupol – but in reality, it was likely for his outspoken pro-Ukrainian views.

She saw him just once after he was taken, when he was covered in bruises and had his arm in a sling after being shot in the elbow by his captors. After Russian forces were driven out of Mykolaiv, Serhii’s body was found buried in a shallow grave – spotted by locals who saw one of his broken arms protruding from the soil.

The corpse was so badly mangled that the local doctor would not let Tatiana see it. Her son, Volodya, reviewed images of it and said it was riddled with bullets and had multiple broken limbs having likely been tortured before he was killed.

 In Trostyanets, a town near the city of Sumy in northern Ukraine, similar terrors were related. Olena Volkova, head doctor at a local hospital, showed the New York Times the body of one man who was tortured to death. ‘His hands and legs are tied up with sticky tape, his teeth are missing and almost all of his face is gone,’ she said.

Others told the newspaper of children who had been held a knifepoint, of rapes and forced abductions, of an old man found toothless and beaten in a ditch, having been defecated on. Police say they have so-far received 15 reports of missing people who they cannot track down. 

Nova Basan, to the east of Kyiv, was another town to suffer under the heel of Russia’s military boot. Mykola Dyachenko, an official responsible for town administration, said he was among 20 men held prisoner by Russian troops for 25 days before they withdrew.

During that time, he was questioned relentlessly about the locations of Ukrainian territorial defence force bases and ammo dumps in the area. He claimed to have been put through 15 ‘mock executions’ in an attempt to terrify him into giving up information, including being blindfolded while a rifle was shot over his head.

Two others described being beaten with rifle butts, punched and kicked. A third said he was suspended by his arms for long periods. Oleksiy Bryzgalin, 38, a construction worker, said he was strapped to a chair with a grenade placed between his legs for 30 hours. 

All of the men said they were fed just two potatoes a day and allowed a single toilet break. They were constantly moved to avoid detection and were forced to sleep in cramped conditions. They escaped their captors a week ago as Russian troops began withdrawing, with Mr Bryzgalin saying he still suffers leg pains as a result of his treatment.

President Zelensky will address the UN Security Council today where he is expected to demand tough new sanctions on Moscow over killings in the town of Bucha that he has called ‘war crimes’ and ‘genocide’.

The speech, Zelensky’s first to the body since Russia’s invasion, comes after he made an emotional trip to Bucha during which he took journalists to see the corpses left in the wake of Russia’s retreat. Moscow has denied responsibility, and cynically accused Ukraine of slaughtering its own people to make Russia look bad. 

‘These are war crimes and it will be recognised by the world as genocide,’ Zelensky said. Later in his nightly address, he demanded ‘the sanctions response to Russia’s massacre of civilians must finally be powerful’.

‘But… did hundreds of our people have to die in agony for some European leaders to finally understand that the Russian state deserves the most severe pressure?’ he asked in the video posted to Telegram.

He also called for additional weapons from Western allies, saying more equipment could have saved thousands.

‘I do not blame you – I blame only the Russian military,’ he said. ‘But you could have helped.’ 

Ukraine’s allies have called the killings in Bucha war crimes, with the EU offering to send investigators to gather evidence.

‘(Russian President Vladimir Putin) is a war criminal,’ US President Biden told reporters at the White House. ‘What’s happening to Bucha is outrageous and everyone’s seen it.’

The White House said it would announce fresh sanctions on Moscow ‘this week’ with France suggesting new measures could target Russian oil and coal exports.

But Germany warned it was too soon to cut off Russian gas.

‘We have to cut all economic relationship to Russia, but at the moment, it’s not possible to cut the gas supplies. We need some time,’ German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said.

Elsewhere, the United States and Britain said they would seek Russia’s suspension from the UN Human Rights Council – a move Moscow branded ‘unbelievable’.

Russia has called for a UN Security Council meeting on what it dubbed the ‘heinous provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha’, but Britain – which holds the Council presidency – has so far refused the request. 

The full nature of the killings in Bucha and other areas from which Russian troops have withdrawn is still being pieced together.

On Monday, the bodies of five men were found in a children’s sanatorium basement in Bucha. The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said they were unarmed civilians, who had been bound, beaten and killed by Russian troops.

And in Motyzhyn, west of Kyiv, Ukrainian police showed AFP journalists the bodies of five civilians with their hands tied, including those of the village’s mayor, her husband and son.

Ukrainian officials say over 400 civilian bodies have been recovered from the Kyiv region, many of whom have been laid to rest in mass graves.

But Zelensky has warned that the deaths in Bucha could be only the tip of the iceberg, saying he had information even more people had been killed in places like nearby Borodianka.

AFP reporters who briefly visited the area saw no bodies in the streets, but locals reported many deaths.

‘I know five civilians were killed,’ said 58-year-old Rafik Azimov. ‘But we don’t know how many more are left in the basements of the ruined buildings after the bombardments.’

‘I buried six people,’ another resident, Volodymyr Nahornyi, said. ‘More people are under the ruins.’ 

The Russian withdrawal from Kyiv has been seen as a pivot to a renewed offensive in the country’s east and south, where Moscow wants to consolidate territory around occupied Crimea and the separatist statelets of Donetsk and Lugansk.

The Ukrainian government has warned Moscow is preparing a ‘full-scale’ attack in the country’s east and regional officials urged civilians to evacuate Lugansk fearing a major Russian attack.

The Pentagon estimates Russia has withdrawn about two thirds of the troops it had around Kyiv and will redeploy them to the east and south, with the White House warning the war’s ‘next phase could be measured in months or longer.’

Even where troops have withdrawn, fears remain, with Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko telling residents to wait before returning, citing the danger of continued shelling and the danger of unexploded munitions.

Overnight, air raid sirens rang out across much of the country, from Lviv in the west to southern Mykolaiv, where officials said Monday that Russian strikes killed 10 civilians and wounded 46.

Elsewhere in the south, concerns remain about civilians trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol.

Authorities say at least 5,000 people have been killed in the city, 90 percent of which has been destroyed, according to mayor Vadim Boichenko.

Around 130,000 residents are still trapped inside, and efforts to evacuate them are now on hold because of ‘incessant’ bombing, he said.

The Red Cross said Monday a team it sent to help get civilians out of Mariupol was being held by police in Russian-controlled territory.

Europe’s worst conflict in decades, sparked by Russia’s invasion on February 24, has killed as many as 20,000 people, according to Ukrainian estimates.

More than 4.2 million Ukrainians have fled the country and about 6.5 million have been internally displaced, UN agencies say.