Satellites provide a striking glimpse into the horrors of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with new images showing mass graves in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, where a bloody massacre of civilians was reported last month.
Maxar Technology satellite imagery also helps dispel Russian misinformation that this brutal event was a hoax.
Increasing evidence proves that retreating Russian soldiers committed numerous atrocities, massacred hundreds of civilians and scattering their corpses on war-torn streets in Bucha, a suburb of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. “They shot everyone they saw,” one of the survivors told reporters of the New York Times.
Former heavyweight boxer and Kyiv mayor Vitaly Klitschko, who went to Bucha on Sunday, April 3, said in a meeting with AFP, “We believe that more than 300 civilians died. This is not a war, it is a genocide, it is a genocide of the Ukrainian people.”
The massacre took place in March 2022, but evidence of the event emerged in early April, after Russian forces withdrew from the city and Ukrainian forces entered the city
Surprisingly, a March 31 report Maxar satellite imagery shows a mass grave with a nearly 14-metre-long moat close to the site of the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints of Pyervozvannoho in Bucha, with earlier images of lower quality saying the tomb may have been first excavated as early as March 10.
The Russian Ministry of Defense denied responsibility for the civilian deaths in Bucha, some even claiming that the images and videos of the massacre He claimed that the flour was “staged with fake corpses” after the Russian army had left the town. But Maxar Technology’s satellite imagery helps refute this false claim.
Satellite photo showing Yablonska Street in Bucha on March 19, 2022Satellite Image ©2022 Maxar Technologies In an image taken on March 19, when Russian forces were still occupying the town, corpses can be seen lying in the streets. A study by the New York Times shows that the bodies are still lying in the same places in video footage taken by a local councilor on April 1. Similar comparisons can be made in Maxar satellite images taken on March 21 and a video uploaded to Instagram on April 2.
Most of the Bucha events are still emerging and there are many unknowns. However, it is clear that this event deeply disturbs leaders in North America and Europe. The US also said the recent events in Bucha are further proof that Russia is guilty of war crimes in Ukraine. “You remember that I was criticized for calling Putin a war criminal. You saw what happened in Bucha. This ensures that he is a war criminal,” US President Joe Biden said on April 4th.
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