BUCHA, Ukraine — Ukrainians marked the anniversary Friday of the liberation of Bucha with calls for remembrance and justice after a brutal Russian occupation that left hundreds of civilians dead in the streets and in mass graves, establishing the town as an epicenter of the war’s atrocities.
“We will not let it be forgotten,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said at a ceremony in Bucha, vowing to punish those who committed outrages there that are still raw. “Human dignity will not let it be forgotten. On the streets of Bucha, the world has seen Russian evil. Evil unmasked.”
Bucha’s name has come to evoke savagery by Moscow’s military since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Ukrainian troops who retook the town near Kyiv found the bodies of men, women, and children on the streets, in yards and homes, and in mass graves. Some showed signs of torture.
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Elsewhere in Ukraine, fighting continued Friday; Russia used its long-range arsenal to bombard anew several areas, killing at least two civilians and damaging homes.
At the official commemoration in Bucha, Zelensky was joined by Moldova’s president and the prime ministers of Croatia, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
The Kremlin’s forces occupied Bucha weeks after they invaded Ukraine and stayed for about a month. When Ukrainian troops retook the town, they encountered horrific scenes. Over weeks and months, hundreds of bodies were uncovered, including children.
Russian soldiers, on intercepted phone conversations, called it “zachistka” — cleansing, according to an investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series “Frontline.”
Such organized cruelty, which Russian troops also employed in other conflicts such as Chechnya, was later repeated in Russia-occupied territories across Ukraine.
Zelensky handed out medals to soldiers, police officers, doctors, teachers, and emergency workers in Bucha, as well as to the families of two soldiers killed during the defense of the Kyiv region. A woman and her daughter wept and nodded as they accepted an award.
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“Ukrainian people, you have stopped the biggest anti-human force of our times,” he said. “You have stopped the force which has no respect and wants to destroy everything that gives meaning to human life.”
Ukrainian authorities documented more than 1,400 civilian deaths, including 37 children, in the Bucha district, Zelensky said. More than 175 people were found in mass graves and alleged torture chambers, he said. Ukraine and other countries, including the US, have demanded that Russia answer for war crimes.
Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin alleged Friday that many of the dead civilians were tortured. Almost 100 Russian soldiers are suspected of war crimes, he said on his Telegram channel, and indictments have been issued for 35 of them.
A Ukrainian court has sentenced two Russian servicemen to 12 years in prison for illegally depriving civilians of liberty, and for looting.
“I am convinced that all these crimes are not a coincidence. This is part of Russia’s planned strategy aimed at destroying Ukraine as a state and Ukrainians as a nation,” Kostin said.
In Geneva, the UN human rights chief said his office has verified the deaths of more than 8,400 civilians in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion — a count believed to be far short of the true toll. Volker Türk told the UN Human Rights Council that “severe violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have become shockingly routine” during Russia’s invasion.
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Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia has to keep fighting, again claiming Ukraine has rejected any cease-fire talks under pressure from its Western allies.
Peskov also dismissed remarks by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán that the European Union was mulling the deployment of peacekeeping troops to Ukraine, calling that “extremely dangerous.”
Russia has maintained its bombardment of Ukraine, with the war already in its second year. Along with the two civilians killed Friday, 14 other civilians were wounded early Friday as Russia launched missiles, shells, exploding drones, and gliding bombs, the Ukraine presidential office said.
Two Russian missiles hit the city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region, damaging eight residential buildings, the office said. Nine Russian missiles struck Kharkiv, damaging residential buildings, roads, gas stations, and a prison. And Russian forces shelled the southern city and region of Kherson.
A barrage at Zaporizhzhia and its outskirts caused major fires.