Ukraine files first war crimes cases charging Russian soldiers with Bucha atrocities

Bucha prosecutors have charged 10 Russian soldiers with torture, and revealed social media posts showing the young men smiling, dancing, fishing and hugging family.

Mortuary workers unload a bag containing a body of a victim in Bucha. Picture: Genya Savilov/AFP

Ukrainian prosecutors have brought the first criminal charges against Russian soldiers accused of torturing civilians in the town of Bucha, where hundreds of people died during a brutal one-month occupation.

The country’s chief prosecutor, Iryna Venediktova, announced the charges against 10 named members of Russia’s 64th Motorised Infantry Brigade for “cruel treatment of civilians and other violations of laws and customs of war”.

Venediktova said the soldiers took unarmed civilians as hostages, deprived them of food and water, forced them on to their knees with their hands tied and their eyes covered in tape, and beat them with fists and gun butts. They also performed mock executions.

A team of 300 prosecutors, police officers and agents of the intelligence agency, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), are working on the cases. The whereabouts of the first 10 official suspects is not known since the retreat of Russian forces north of Kyiv late last month, but a remarkable amount of information has been gleaned from social media and other online sources.

The photographs downloaded by the Bucha prosecutors show young men smiling, dancing, fishing and hugging their wives, girlfriends and children. They include Private Sergei Peskarev, 24, from Yakutia in Siberia. He worked until last year as a cashier at a local supermarket in the city of Khabarovsk.

Junior Sergeant Vyacheslav Lavrentyev, 29, from Transbaikalia in Russia’s far east, was formerly an emergency worker who proudly posted photographs of himself by a fire engine. He wrote on his Facebook page: “Live one life – save thousands.”

During a visit to Kyiv, Bucha and other liberated towns yesterday (Thursday), Antonio Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, gave his support to war crimes investigations.

“When we talk about war crimes, we cannot forget that the worst of crimes is war itself,” he said. “War is an absurdity in the 21st century. The war is evil. And when one sees these situations, our heart, of course, stays with the victims.”

His visit was marked last night (Thursday) by explosions in Kyiv in what appeared to be a new Russian attack. Local authorities said a factory and an apartment block were hit. The number of dead and injured was not known.

“There was an attack on Kyiv … it shocked me, not because I’m here but because Kyiv is a sacred city for Ukrainians and Russians alike,” Mr Guterres said.

The Times