The Ukrainian President become visibly emotional today as he described the discovery of raped women and murdered children among the dead in Bucha.
Volodymyr Zelensky surveyed the alleged atrocities with Ukrainian servicemen after Russian troops retreated from the area.
Ukrainian officials have said 410 innocent civilians have been killed in the towns surrounding Kyiv, with 300 of them in Bucha alone. A mass grave of 57 bodies was uncovered in the city today.
Many of the victims were found with close-range gunshot injuries, severed limbs, bound hands and signs of torture.
This evening the bodies of five more men were also discovered in a basement, AFP News Agency reports.
Speaking from Bucha, Zelensky vowed that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his troops would be punished for the alleged war crimes.
He said: “It’s very difficult to talk. It’s very difficult to negotiate when you see what they did here.
“Every day we find people in barrels, cellars and everywhere else, some strangled, some clearly tortured.”
He continued to reporters: “These are war crimes and will be recognised by the world as genocide. You are here today and can see what happened.
“We know of thousands of people killed and tortured, with severed limbs, raped women, murdered children. I think it is more than … this is a genocide.”
Zelensky noted that residents in the area had chipped in to feed animals left homeless by the alleged atrocities – stating that Ukrainians “treat animals the way you would treat humans”.
He went on: “You can see around what was done to this modern town. That’s a characteristic of Russian soldiers – treat people worse than animals.”
Chilling satellite images have shown the devastation in Bucha, with an approximately 45-foot long grave site uncovered near the Church of St. Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints.
Taras Shapravskyi, deputy mayor of Bucha, said 50 of the bodies were the victims of extra-judicial killings carried out by Russian troops.
The body of a Ukrainian mayor and her family were also found among those buried in a mass grave just outside Motyzhyn, west of Kyiv.
Olga Sukhenko was killed along with her husband Ihor and son Oleksandr, Ukraine’s former ambassador to Austria, Olexander Scherba, said.
Her fingers and arms were broken, the mayor of the nearby town of Kopyliv said.
It is thought she was tortured for aiding the Ukraine resistance.
Journalists in the region described seeing corpses of civilians with their heads taped, destroyed houses and burnt-out cars.
Moscow has claimed the alleged atrocities have been “staged” by Ukraine to sully Russia in the media.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine’s version of what happened in Bucha was a “fake attack” aimed at undermining the nation.
Today US President Joe Biden called for a war crimes trial against Russian President Vladimir Putin over the alleged atrocities.
He told reporters: “He is a war criminal. But we have to gather the information.
“We have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue to fight and we have to get all the detail so this could be – actual have a war crimes trial.
“This guy is brutal and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous and everyone’s seen it.”
Neither the USA or Russia recognises the International Criminal Court which is responsible for prosecuting war crimes.