Granskning: Ryska våldet mot civila var strategi

The Bucha massacre (Ukrainian: Бучанська різанина, romanized: Buchanska rizanyna) was the killing of Ukrainian civilians by Russian Armed Forces during the fight for and occupation of the Ukrainian city of Bucha amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photographic and video evidence of the massacre emerged on 1 April 2022 after Russian forces withdrew from the city.According to local authorities, 458 bodies have been recovered from the town, including 9 children under the age of 18; among the victims, 419 people were killed by weapons and 39 appeared to have died of natural causes, possibly related to the occupation. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights documented the unlawful killings, including summary executions, of at least 50 civilians in Bucha. Photos showed corpses of civilians, lined up with their hands bound behind their backs, shot at point-blank range, which ostensibly gave proof that summary executions had taken place. 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. Ukraine has asked the International Criminal Court to investigate what happened in Bucha as part of its ongoing investigation of the invasion in order to determine whether a series of Russian war crimes or crimes against humanity were committed.Russian authorities have denied responsibility and instead claimed that Ukraine faked footage of the event or staged the killings itself as a false flag operation, and have claimed that the footage and photographs of dead bodies were "fake news". These assertions by Russian authorities have been debunked as false by various groups and media organizations around the world. Eye-witness accounts from residents of Bucha said that the Russian Armed Forces carried out the killings.

Aleksandr Yuryevich Chaiko (Russian: Александр Юрьевич Чайко; born on 27 July 1971) is a Russian army officer who was formerly the commander of the Eastern Military District from 12 November 2021 until he was replaced with Rustam Muradov on October 7, 2022. He was awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation in 2020, and is a colonel general as of 2021. He is suspected of organizing massacres in Bucha and other towns around Kiev during 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.