Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russian troops "murderers, torturers, rapists, looters" on Monday after dozens of bodies were found near the embattled capital, Kyiv, triggering global outrage and vows of tough new sanctions on Moscow.
Local authorities said they had been obliged to dig communal graves to bury the dead accumulating in the streets. Some bodies were found with their hands bound behind their backs, in scenes that sent shockwaves through international capitals.
Despite Russian denials of responsibility, condemnation was swift, with Western leaders, NATO and the UN all voicing horror at reports of civilian murders in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, and elsewhere.
President Zelensky was unsparing in his nightly video message, warning "concentrated evil has come to our land".
He described Russian troops as "murderers, torturers, rapists, looters, who call themselves the army and who deserve only death after what they did.
"I want every mother of every Russian soldier to see the bodies of the killed people in Bucha, in Irpin, in Hostomel," the president continued.
"I want all the leaders of the Russian Federation to see how their orders are being fulfilled."
Macron describes 'unbearable scenes'
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he was in favour of new sanctions against Moscow after claims that Russian forces committed atrocities against Ukrainian civilians in Bucha.
"There are very clear indications of war crimes. It was the Russian army that was in Bucha," Macron told the France Inter broadcaster after the discovery of mass graves and hundreds of dead people northwest of Kyiv.
"The scenes are unbearable. International justice must work. Those who were behind these crimes must answer," he said.
Macron called for progress on further moves towards sanctions at European Union level which he said could target the Russian oil and coal industries.
"What happened in Bucha makes a new round of sanctions, and very clear measures, necessary," Macron said.
France would coordinate such steps with its EU partners, "especially Germany", in the coming days, he said.
Macron said that targeting the oil and coal industries would be "particularly" painful for Russia.
Scale of killings remains unclear
Zelensky said he had created a special body to investigate killings in areas from which Russian troops have withdrawn around the capital, as Moscow refocuses its energies on southeastern Ukraine.
The scale of the killings is still being investigated, but Ukrainian prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova said 410 civilian bodies had been recovered so far.
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Russia of a "deliberate massacre", while Zelensky's spokesman, Sergiy Nikiforov, said the killings in Bucha "looks exactly like war crimes".
Russia's defence ministry pushed back, saying "not a single local resident" in Bucha suffered violence.
It accused Kyiv of bombarding its southern suburbs and falsifying images of corpses in "another production" for Western media.
Moscow's deputy ambassador to the UN said Russia had requested a UN Security Council meeting on Monday "in light of heinous provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha".
AFP reporters in the town saw at least 20 bodies, all in civilian clothing, strewn across a single street.
Calls for harsher sanctions
Images of the dead have sparked global shock and calls for new measures against Russia.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the killings "a punch to the gut", while NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the violence -- unseen in Europe for decades -- was "horrific" and "absolutely unacceptable".
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said new sanctions would be decided "in the coming days.
"President Putin and his supporters will feel the consequences," he said, as his defence minister raised the possibility of an end to gas imports.
'Something terrible is coming'
Europe's worst conflict in decades, sparked by Russia's invasion on 24 February, has already killed 20,000 people, according to Ukrainian estimates.
Nearly 4.2 million Ukrainians have fled the country, with almost 40,000 pouring into neighbouring countries in the last 24 hours alone, the UN refugee agency said.
In the eastern city of Kramatorsk, women, children and elderly people were boarding trains to flee the Donbas region.
"The rumour is that something terrible is coming," said Svetlana, a volunteer organising the crowd on the station platform.
Russia has redoubled its efforts in Ukraine's south and east, including carrying out several strikes Sunday on the strategic Black Sea port of Odessa, which Moscow said targeted an oil refinery and fuel depots.
Peace talks are scheduled to resume by video on Monday, though Russia's chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said it was too early for a top-level meeting between Zelensky and Putin.
