Ukraine regains control of area around Kyiv, Streets covered with dead bodies

Picture Courtesy: AFP

Ukrainian forces have regained control of the northern area around Kyiv on Saturday. As the forces are moving into the area, they are using cables to pull the bodies of civilians off the streets in one town out of fear that Russian forces might have booby-trapped them before leaving.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also warned in one of his videos that Russian forces might have left mines and booby-traps around civilian homes. Zelensky also said he expects departed towns to endure missile strikes and rocket strikes from afar and for the battle in the east to be intense.

In his video, he said, "It's still not possible to return to normal life, as it used to be, even at the territories that we are taking back after the fighting. We need [to] wait until our land is de-mined, wait till we are able to assure you that there won't be new shelling.”

Journalists from AFP and BBC who entered the area regained by Ukraine said that they found piles of bodies on the streets. The dead bodies were in civilian clothes indicating that they were killed by Russian forces.

In the town of Bucha, a photographer for Reuters news agency also recorded dead bodies, holes gaped from apartment blocks hit by shelling and crushed cars littered on the streets. The town's mayor, Anatoly Fedoruk, told AFP by phone that all of the dead had been shot in the back of the head. He added that other bodies still lay inside the wrecks of cars destroyed by shelling.