Ukraine mayor ‘executed by Russian troops alongside husband & son and dumped in shallow grave’

A VILLAGE mayor in Ukraine was kidnapped, executed and dumped in a forest pit along with her husband and son, reports claim.

Neighbours said Russian troops occupying Motyzhyn, 30 miles west of Kyiv, tried to win the support of local officials and butchered them when they refused to collaborate.

AP

AP

The horrors emerged after Putin’s forces retreated from the Kyiv region back towards Belarus.

The mayor Olga Sukhenko, her husband Igor and son Alexander were reportedly kidnapped on March 23.

Their fate was unknown until their bodies were found on Saturday in a shallow grave behind houses that Russian soldiers had used as makeshift barracks.

A fourth body was also found but has not yet been identified.

Reports said they had all been shot.

Elsewhere in the village, another victim was allegedly shot by Russians and dumped down a well.

It came as reports emerged of Putin’s butchers executing tied-up civilians and leaving bodies strewn on the street in Bucha, near Kyiv.

The retreating forces are also said to have booby-trapped corpses and mined homes.

There have also been claims the Kremlin’s soldiers raped women and “mutilated children”.

Ukrainian officials say 410 people have been found dead in towns near Kyiv so far.

At least 300 were killed in Bucha alone, and 57 were discovered in one mass grave there.

Among the dead is said to be a 14-year-old boy.

Bucha’s mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said “all these people were shot,” adding 280 other bodies had been buried in mass graves elsewhere in the town.

Boxing legend Wladimir Klitshcko posted a Twitter video from Bucha that he said showed civilians “shot in the head with their hands tied behind their back”.

He said: “This is not a special military operation. This is genocide.”

In nearby Irpin, one report claimed Russian kill squads shot women and girls and then drove over them in tanks.

And emergency services said more than 1,500 explosives had been found in one day in the recently liberated village of Dmytrivka.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky told the US news channel CBS: “They are mining all this territory.

“Houses are mined, equipment is mined, even the bodies of dead people.

“This is genocide. The elimination of the whole nation and the people.

It comes as…

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• Vladimir Putin’s forces mining homes and corpses & ‘using children as human shields’

“We are the citizens of Ukraine. We have more than 100 nationalities.

“This is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities.”

Russia last night insisted allegations it targeted civilians were “fake”.

Moscow says no residents were hurt by Russian forces and accused Kyiv of staging the horrific scenes in Bucha for western media.

But Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said: “Russia is worse than ISIS.”

He told Times Radio: “They were killing civilians while leaving – out of anger and just because they wanted to kill.

“We are still gathering bodies but the number has already gone into hundreds.”

Boris Johnson warned the sickening images are evidence that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine.

And he said Britain will step up sanctions and military aid in response.

“I will do everything in my power to starve Putin’s war machine,” he said yesterday.

He added: “No denial or disinformation from the Kremlin can hide what we all know to be the truth — Putin is desperate, his invasion is failing, and Ukraine’s resolve has never been stronger.

“We are stepping up our sanctions and military support, as well as bolstering our humanitarian support package to help those in need on the ground.

“The UK has been at the forefront of supporting the International Criminal Court’s investigation into atrocities committed in Ukraine.

“The Justice Secretary has authorised additional financial support and the deployment of specialist investigators — we will not rest until justice is served.”

The International Criminal Court in The Hague has already opened a probe into possible war crimes committed in Ukraine.

Human Rights Watch also said it had documented cases of Russian troops committing possible war crimes against civilians in occupied areas of Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv, including rape and summary execution.

It comes as Ukraine said it had regained control of the Kyiv region, with Russian troops retreating from around the capital and the city of Chernihiv near the Belarus border.

On Saturday defence forces said they had taken back more than 30 towns and villages around Kyiv, claiming complete control of the capital region for the first time since Russia launched its invasion on February 24.

“The whole Kyiv region is liberated from the invader,” Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar wrote on Facebook.

AP

AP