Bucha massacre

The Bucha massacre (Ukrainian: Бучанська різанина, romanised: Buchanska rizanyna; Russian: Резня в Буче, romanised: Reznya v Buche) was the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war by the Russian Armed Forces during the fight for and occupation of the city of Bucha as part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photographic and video evidence of the massacre emerged on 1 April 2022, after Russian forces withdrew from the city. Testimonies had been emerging since early March.

According to local authorities, 458 bodies have been recovered from the town, including nine children under the age of 18. Among the victims, 419 people were killed with weapons and 39 appeared to have died of natural causes, possibly related to the occupation. A memorial wall was installed in Bucha with 501 names of killed residents. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights documented the unlawful killings, including summary executions, of at least 73 civilians in Bucha. Photos showed corpses of civilians, lined up with their hands bound behind their backs, shot at close range. An inquiry by Radio Free Europe reported the use of a basement beneath a campground as a torture chamber. Many bodies were found mutilated and burnt, and girls as young as fourteen reported being raped by Russian soldiers. In intercepted conversations, Russian soldiers referred to these operations involving hunting down people in lists, filtration, torture, and execution as zachistka ("cleansing"). Ukraine has asked the International Criminal Court to investigate what happened in Bucha as part of its ongoing investigation of the invasion to determine whether a series of Russian war crimes or crimes against humanity were committed. The massacre was described by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as genocide.