Fleeing Russian army leave a trail of bodies in their wake
RUSSIAN forces were last night making a “rapid retreat” from Kyiv – but leaving a trail of bodies and booby traps in their wake.
As Vladimir Putin’s troops regrouped in preparation for a new offensive in the south east, Ukrainian forces recaptured more than 30 towns and villages.
Its flag was raised at Chernobyl as workers sang the national anthem and celebrated the departure of occupiers who had been at the site since the beginning of the invasion on February 24.
But across the country a bloody scene faced the defending soldiers.
The bodies of at least 20 men in civilian clothes were found lying in a street after forces retook the town of Bucha, near Kyiv, yesterday.
Some, with their hands tied, had bullet wounds to the head.
Ukrainian soldiers backed by a column of tanks and other armoured vehicles used cables to drag bodies off of a street from a distance, fearing they might have been rigged with explosives.
Locals said the dead were civilians who were killed by departing soldiers without provocation
And last night the town’s mayor said that a mass grave in the town contained 280 bodies.
Ukrainian war photographer Maksym Levin, 40, was also found dead near a village north of Kyiv by police on Friday.
Yesterday prosecutors said Mr Levin, who regularly worked for Reuters, had been unarmed and “was killed by servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces with two shots from small firearms”.
The Office of the Prosecutor General has said at least 158 children have been killed and more than 254 injured since the invasion.
And in his daily address yesterday, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky warned retreating Russian forces were creating “a complete disaster” by planting mines and booby traps and it was not safe for people to return.
“The occupiers are withdrawing forces in the north of our country,” he said. “They are mining the whole territory. They are mining homes, mining equipment, even the bodies of people who were killed.
“It’s still not possible to return to normal life, as it used to be, even at the territories that we are taking back after the fighting. We need to wait until our land is de-mined, wait till we are able to assure you there won’t be new shelling.”
Emergency services also urged people in the newly liberated zones to be vigilant, as more than 1,500 explosives were found in one day during a search of the village of Dmytrivka, west of the capital.
Mr Zelensky warned the situation in the east is “extremely difficult” as Russian forces were accumulating and “preparing for new powerful blows” in the Donbas region and in the city of Kharkiv.
He added: “Hard battles lie ahead. We cannot think that we have already passed all the tests.”
As the Russian invasion entered its fifth week, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said: “With the rapid retreat of the
Russians from the Kyiv and Chernigiv regions it is completely clear that Russia is prioritising a different tactic – falling back on the east and south.”
Here, the Ministry of Defence said Ukrainian forces continue to advance against withdrawing Russians near Kyiv, including Hostomel airport, where the world’s largest cargo aircraft, the Antonov An-225, was destroyed.
It added: “Ukrainian forces have secured a key route in eastern Kharkiv after heavy fighting.
“This follows the liberation of
Trostyanets, in the vicinity of Sumy, earlier in the week.”
Ukraine’s armed forces repelled nine Russian attacks on Friday, destroying eight tanks, 44 armoured vehicles, 16 other vehicles and 10 artillery systems.
Fierce fighting continued elsewhere, with an estimated 160,000 people still trapped in Mariupol, sheltering in cold cellars and bombed-out ruins.
Deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 42 buses carrying Mariupol residents had departed from the Russian-held
coastal city of Berdiansk, while another 12 left Melitopol.
The Red Cross also renewed its attempt to reach besieged port Mariupol yesterday.
However, in a sign Russia is cracking down on dissent, troops violently dispersed a pro-ukrainian protest in the occupied city of Enerhodar, home to workers of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
OVD-INFO, which monitors arrests during protests, added Russian police also detained at least 208 people during demonstrations in 17 Russian cities.
Russia also threatened to target British weapons as they are shipped to Ukraine after a video showed a Uk-made Starstreak missile shooting down a Russian attack helicopter.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said last week that more “lethal aid” will be sent to Ukraine, including longer-range artillery and anti-ship missiles.
Russian ambassador to the UK Andrey Kelin told Russian news agency TASS: “All arms supplies
are destabilising, particularly those mentioned by Wallace. They exacerbate the situation, making it even bloodier.
“Naturally, our armed forces will view them as a legitimate target if those supplies get through the Ukrainian border.”
Russia also continued to strike back, with missiles hitting Poltava and Kremenchuk early yesterday damaging residential buildings.
There were also reports that a deputy mayor in the Sumy region was kidnapped by Russian forces. The invaders have removed elected mayors and replaced them with Kremlin puppets in towns and cities it has occupied.
But Mr Zelensky warned these temporary “gauleiters” – a reference to district leaders in Nazi Germany – they won’t last long.
He said: “My message to them is simple: the responsibility for collaboration is inevitable.
“Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow is a secondary issue. The main thing is the inevitability that justice will be restored.”