The vast majority of victims in the area around the capital were “simply executed” by gunfire, police said. The gloomy number of bodies continued to rise as corpses were discovered under rubble and in mass graves. Andriy Nebytov, head of the capital’s regional police force, estimated that 95% of the bodies trapped in the area had been shot and that pro-Ukrainian civilians had been hunted down and killed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused the occupying forces in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of doing the same. “The conquerors believe that this will make it easier for them to control this land. But they are very wrong. “They are making fun of themselves,” Zelensky said. “Russia’s problem is that it is not accepted – and will never be accepted – by the entire Ukrainian people. “Russia has lost Ukraine forever.” News of the horrific death toll coincided with another grim revelation as Zelensky told CNN on Friday that between 2,500 and 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the invasion and about 10,000 wounded. Officials gave information about the atrocities as the Russian Ministry of Defense pledged to increase air raids in the capital in retaliation for the destruction of the top warship, which sank by Ukrainian missiles on Thursday. The loss of the Black Sea flagship of 12,500 tons is the latest embarrassment to hit the armed forces of the supposed superpower during its unprovoked invasion. U.S. intelligence officials have denied that the ship was carrying nuclear warheads at the time of the sinking, CNN reported. Locals ride bicycles as the body of a civilian killed during the Ukraine-Russia conflict lies on a road near Illich Steel and Iron Works in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine on April 15, 2022.Reuters Russia has also accused Ukraine of killing seven people and damaging 100 apartment buildings in the Bryansk region, just across the border, as it prepares for new attacks in disputed territories in the east. “The number and scale of targeted bombings in Kyiv will increase in response to the nationalist regime in Kiev that is carrying out terrorist attacks or sabotage on Russian soil,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Kronatkov Tass said. The Ukrainian defenders probably survived Russian raids in the besieged port of Donbass in Mariupol, while the bombing of a Kharkiv district killed seven people – including an infant – and injured 34 others, local leaders said. Buha still appeared to have suffered the most atrocities, with 350 people found tied up and shot. U.S. lawmakers toured the Bukhara region this week, citing “indisputable evidence of Putin’s war crimes.” Relatives mourn the death of Territorial Defense Oleksandr Mozheiko, who was killed by the Russian army on March 5 during his funeral in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine on April 15, 2022.AP With Post cables
