Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk on Saturday told AFP that Ukraine has ‘already buried 280 people in mass graves’ in Bucha, a city outside capital Kyiv. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Sunday said that the killing of the civilians in the town was a ‘deliberate massacre’. 

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Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, described the situation on the streets of Bucha and the Kyiv suburbs of Irpin and Hostomel as a ‘scene from a horror movie’. British Foreign Secretary and Germany amoungst other countries said that the killings should be investigated as war crimes. 

“Bucha massacre was deliberate. Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can. We must stop them and kick them out. I demand new devastating G7 sanctions NOW,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.

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Podolyak said that the worst crimes of Nazism have returned to EU. 

“Kyiv region. 21st century Hell. Bodies of men and women, who were killed with their hands tied. This was purposely done by Russia. Impose an embargo on energy resources, close seaports. Stop the murders!” he tweeted. 

The capital city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said civilians were “shot with joined hands” and told German newspaper Bild that “what happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be described as genocide.”

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AFP reporters saw at least 20 bodies, all in civilian clothing, strewn across a single street. Associated Press journalists saw the bodies of at least nine people who appeared to have been killed at close range. 

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Charles Michel, president of the European Council, wrote on Twitter that he was shocked by the “haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army” in the capital region. The EU and non-governmental organizations were assisting in the effort to preserve evidence of war crimes, according to Michel, who promised “further EU sanctions” against Russia.

Berlin condemned Bucha ‘war crime’. It said that it wants more sanctions on Russia.