Russia denies killing civilians in Ukraine's Bucha

Russia on Sunday (Apr 3) denied Ukrainian allegations that it had killed civilians in the town of Bucha, recently retaken by Ukrainian forces from Moscow's troops. 

Russia's defence ministry said in a statement that footage and photographs showing dead bodies were "yet another provocation". 

"During the time this settlement was under the control of Russian armed forces, not a single local resident suffered from any violent actions," the ministry said.

Photo and video of corpses strewn across the streets of Bucha were "another production of the Kyiv regime for the Western media," it added.

Bucha mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk had earlier said that 300 residents had been killed by the Russian army. 

At least 57 people were found buried in a mass grave, a local official said Sunday as he showed AFP the slit trench where the bodies lay. Some of the bodies were either unburied or partially buried in the earth.

Some of the bodies were concealed in black zip-up body bags while others were in civilian clothing.

"It looks exactly like war crimes," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's spokesman told BBC television.

"We found mass graves. We found people with their hands and with their legs tied up ... and with shots, bullet holes, in the back of their head.

"They were clearly civilians and they were executed."

In its statement on Sunday, Russia said that its military units had withdrawn from Bucha on Mar 30.

"On Mar 31, the mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, confirmed in his video message that there was no Russian military in the city, but he did not even mention any local residents shot in the streets with their hands tied," said the Russian defence ministry.

"The so-called 'evidence of crimes' in Bucha appeared only on the fourth day, when SBU [Security Service of Ukraine] officers and representatives of Ukrainian television arrived in the city," it added.

"The photos and video frames from Bucha are another staged performance by the Kyiv regime for the Western media, as it was in Mariupol with the maternity hospital, as well as in other cities."