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Ukrainian authorities searched for bodies in areas around the nation’s capital city on Wednesday
Investigators sought to document what appeared to be widespread killings of civilians by Russian forces.
Ukrainian authorities have said the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv and dozens of corpses in civilian clothes were counted in Bucha.
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Some residents had their hands bound or flesh burned before being shot at close range.
In the Makariv area, police said officers had found 20 bodies and workers combed through the rubble of apartment blocks in the town of Borodyanka.
“First we were scared, now we are hysterical,” Valentyna Klymenko, 64, told The Associated Press. She said she, her husband and two neighbors survived the siege by sleeping on stacks of potatoes covered with a mattress and blankets. “We didn’t cry at first. Now we are crying.”
More than 4.2 million refugees have fled Ukraine since the invasion began on Feb. 24, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The UNHCR has recorded 3,776 civilian casualties, including 1,567 in the Donetsky and Luhansk regions.
Those numbers are believed to be considerably higher, due to the delay of information in locations with intense hostilities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday that women had been raped and killed in front of their children and that others had been tortured, thrown into wells, blown up with grenades and crushed to death by tanks while in cars.
He said that those responsible should face war crimes charges in front of a tribunal and called on the U.N. to remove Russia from the Security Council.
“Where is the peace that the United Nations was created to guarantee?” Zelenskyy asked.
Russia has said its troops have committed no war crimes, with Moscow’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia claiming “not a single local person” suffered from violence while Bucha was under Russian control.
He called shocking images of bodies lining Ukraine streets “a crude forgery.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said negotiations to end the fight continue despite the war crime allegations.
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Western governments were set to toughen sanctions against the Kremlin – including a reported ban on new investment in Russia – and send more weapons to Ukraine, as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces pour into Donbas.
Diplomats confirmed to Fox News on Wednesday that a U.S.-Ukraine proposal to remove Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council will take place on Thursday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
