Ukraine has identified a Russian military commander it accuses of “systematic and systemic war crimes” in Bucha, near Kiev, where hundreds of civilians were killed during a brief occupation by Russian forces in 2022.
Yury Vladimirovich Kim, a platoon commander in Russia’s 76th Air Assault Division, is accused of ordering his troops to kill civilians between March 7 and April 1, 2022, according to an indictment by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
Bucha, where the bodies of children and elderly people were found lying on the streets as Russia retreated, has become synonymous with the atrocities of Moscow’s ongoing war in Ukraine. Hundreds of civilians were found buried in mass graves, some tortured and executed in crypts.
Ukraine has accused Kim, who is not in custody, of criminal responsibility for 17 killings in Bucha and four cases of abuses by troops under his command. Lawyers at Global Rights Compliance, which is helping Ukrainian authorities gather evidence, said the case against Kim is based on eyewitness testimony, forensics, crime scene reconstructions, identity parades, maps and open source information.
Kim is also suspected of ordering the burning of the victim’s body to cover up the crime.
“This incident highlights the Russian military’s systematic approach to war crimes and shows that many of the atrocities in Bucha were part of a highly coordinated criminal plot involving Russian leadership,” Global Rights Compliance said in a statement.
Ukraine had previously named soldiers and at least one commander on charges of mass murder in Bucha.
“We have gone beyond holding lower-level perpetrators accountable and are exposing the decisions of the chain of command whose routine orders led to mass executions of civilians,” Maksym Tutskiridze, First Deputy Chief of Ukraine’s National Police, said in a statement released by his lawyers.
The Kremlin denies that its troops killed civilians in Bucha and accuses Ukraine of creating false images of civilian bodies in the town.
CNN has reached out to the Russian government for comment.
This article has been updated to remove the statement that Kim was the first commander to be notified of the allegations.
