Investigation reveals potential Russian war crimes in Ukraine

SPUTNIK, KREMLIN POOL PHOTO VIA AP

From right, President Vladimir Putin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Lt. Gen. Alexander Chaiko listen to Syrian President Bashar Assad during a meeting in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2020.

RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE VIA AP

In this image from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Thursday, March 24, commander of the troops of the Russian Eastern Military District Alexander Chaiko speaks to Russian servicemen during a special military operation at an undisclosed location in Ukraine.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

In this image from surveillance video, Russian troops take over Yablunska Street in Bucha, Ukraine on March 3, where they set up a headquarters during their month-long occupation. When Russian troops crossed from Belarus into Ukraine in late February, pressing toward Kyiv, they were ordered to block and destroy “nationalist resistance,” according to the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank that has reviewed copies of Russia’s battle plans.

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In this image from surveillance video, Russian troops take over Yablunska Street in Bucha, Ukraine on March 3, where they set up a headquarters during their month-long occupation. Police recovered nearly 40 bodies along Yablunksa after Russian forces withdrew at the end of March.

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A house burns following shelling of Irpin, Ukraine, 26 kilometers (16 miles) west of Kyiv, Friday, March 4.

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People walk along an improvised path under a bridge that was destroyed by Ukrainian troops designed to slow any Russian military advances, as they flee Irpin, Ukraine, Saturday, March 5.

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The bodies of people killed during Russian shelling lie covered in the street in the town of Irpin, Ukraine, Sunday, March 6.

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Soldiers walk on a path as smoke billows from the town of Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, March 12. The northwest suburbs of the capital, such as Irpin and Bucha had endured Russian shellfire and bombardment, prompting residents to leave their homes.

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Vitalii Chernysh stands for a portrait in Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine, on April 28. Chernysh says soldiers found a photo of Russian military vehicles someone had sent him on a social media platform on Feb. 25 and hauled him off with three other people, bound and blindfolded, to a nearby barn. The next day, Chernysh was taken, blindfolded, to a field and accused of being a spotter. "Where are the nationalists?" the soldiers demanded. They poured gasoline on him and pretended to set him on fire. They ordered him to run through what they said was a minefield.

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Bodies lie scattered in a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Sunday, April 3. Ukrainian troops found brutalized bodies and widespread destruction in the suburbs of Kyiv.

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The body of an elderly woman lies inside a house in Bucha, Ukraine, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Tuesday, April 5.

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Andrii Shkoliar, left, and his mother-in-law, Natalia Savenko, sit in their home in Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine on Aug. 1. On March 18, Shkoliar and his wife were walking nearby to a relative's house when a dark-colored UAZ Patriot sped past, stopped abruptly and drove back to them. A soldier who appeared to be of higher rank stepped out of the Russian-made SUV, demanding to know why they'd broken curfew. "He told me: "I give you one hour back and forth, otherwise you'll be like this one in the car," Shkoliar recalled.

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Ihor Syrotkin, left, and Yevhen Pohranychnyi stand in front of a large house in Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine on April 28, where they discovered the bodies of unknown men, marked by torture, in the back garden. On March 30, Pohranychnyi went to this home which Russian officers had used, to check on his neighbor’s cat and see how badly the house had been looted. He found the bodies of two men. The next morning, he brought the village head, the village priest and others to the site. Three more bodies had appeared overnight.

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Journalists examine the site of a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Tuesday, April 5, after Russian forces left.

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A resident looks for belongings in the ruins of an apartment building destroyed during fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces in Borodyanka, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 5.

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Police investigate the killing of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine on the outskirts of Kyiv, before bringing the corpses to a morgue, Wednesday, April 6.

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A Ukrainian serviceman walks amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, Ukraine, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Wednesday, April 6.