Russian soldiers accused of killing Ukrainian village head and her family

The head of Motoyzhyn village, her husband, and her son were killed by the Russian forces during their occupation of the village near Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials.

The 51-year-old woman called Olha Sukhenko was allegedly killed along with her family on the suspicion of working to help Ukrainian soldiers. Their half-buried bodies were found on the edge of the forest near the village.

Russian soldiers are being accused of targeting civilians in cities and towns under their occupation. The Ukrainian authorities claimed that they also discovered bodies of five men dressed in civilian clothing in the town of Bucha, who were brutally tortured and killed by Russian forces.

"We heard them being shot. We heard mines go off in the area. Around us there are mines. We are lucky we are alive," one of the residents told BBC. There have been reports of bodies being found in mass graves and streets, waiting to be collected after Russian forces retreated from the town.

Mid-March satellite imagery of streets in Bucha appeared to show several bodies of civilians lying dead in or just off the roadway where Ukrainian officials recently said they found multiple corpses after Russian troops withdrew.

AFP photographers who visited the town confirmed the presence of some 20 bodies -- all in civilian clothing, some with their hands tied -- in scenes that have attracted global condemnation.

Anatoliy Fedoruk, the mayor of Bucha, has said that at least 300 civilians have been killed in the town alone. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky went to see the carnage in Bucha and slammed Russia for the alleged war crimes.

"We want you to show the world what happened here, what the Russian military did, what the Russian Federation did in peaceful Ukraine. It was important for you to see that these were civilians," he said.

Meanwhile, Russia has denied killing civilians in Bucha and said that the images of bodies lying in the streets were "fakes." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian "experts at the Ministry of Defence have identified signs of video fakes and various fakes."

"We would demand that many international leaders do not rush to sweeping accusations and at least listen to our arguments," he added.

Several countries, including the United States, have called for an investigation into the alleged war crimes committed by Vladimir Putin's forces.

"You may remember I got criticised for calling Putin a war criminal. You saw what happened in Bucha - he is a war criminal... but we have to gather all the detail so this can have a war crimes trial," said US President Joe Biden.