Russia rejects accusations of Ukraine Bucha killings

MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Monday rejected accusations that Russian forces were responsible for killing civilians near Kyiv and suggested images of corpses were “fakes”.

“We categorically reject all allegations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

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 said.

International journalists over the weekend found corpses in civilian clothes, some with their hands bound, in the town of Bucha outside Ukraine’s capital after Kyiv’s forces retook it from Russia’s army.

Ukraine and Western leaders have erupted in outrage over the deaths in Bucha, a small town northwest of Kyiv.

Russia’s foreign ministry has called for a special UN Security Council meeting Monday to address what it said was a “heinous provocation” to blame Russian forces.

Russian investigators also announced a probe into the images, saying that according to Moscow’s military they “do not correspond to reality and are provocative in nature”.