Relatives of civilians killed in Borodianka near Kyiv have been telling Euronews of their grief.
Alexander Sergueiovich Salov said his father died after standing in front of a column of Russian military vehicles.
His headless body was buried next to a local hospital and is among nine exhumed by authorities investigating possible war crimes.
“There was shelling,” Alexander told Euronews. “In the evening he [his father] told us that he would go to stop the Russian forces. He spoke Russian. He’s from Russia. And he went to stop the column. He stood in front of the armoured vehicle. And they just ran over him.”
Nadiya lost her 34-year-old son. He was a construction worker.
“He was walking home. It was on 28 February. They shot him with automatic guns and he didn’t lie down quickly enough. It went through his chest and stomach. We buried him on the 15 March because we couldn’t do it sooner, he had to stay at the morgue. The commander didn’t allow us to bury him so we buried him on 15 March here, in the garden.”
The head of the national police in the Kyiv region, Andrii Niebytov, is unequivocal.
“I take it as possible and necessary to talk about a genocide of the Ukrainian people,” he said. “It is another example of war crimes of the Russian Federation when they shoot civilian people.
“These people were not military and not territorial defence, they were simple citizens and they were shot in the street. This is against all international conventions and international law, which prohibits such these acts against civilians.”
Borodianka, situated around 50 kilometres outside the Ukrainian capital, is among the most heavily bombed in the region. Around 50 bodies have been recovered from the rubble so far; hundreds more are expected to be found.
Across the wider Kyiv region, 1,000 dead civilians have been found.
Russia has issued blanket denials that its troops target civilians in Ukraine.