“Ukraine is a crime scene,” International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan said on Wednesday during his visit to Boutcha.

"We are here because we have good reason to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court are being committed," said the Briton to the press present in this city near kyiv where the Russian army is accused by the Ukrainian government for massacring civilians.

“We have to cut through the fog of war to get to the truth,” he added, adding that an ICC forensic team was preparing to work “so that we can truly separate truth from fiction.” .

"We have to keep an open mind and trust the evidence," he added.

"The law must be mobilized and thrown into battle to protect civilians."

Exhumation of bodies from mass graves

AFP journalists who were able to go there on April 2 saw the bodies of twenty men dressed in civilian clothes scattered over several hundred meters in a city street.

One was lying on his bike, others had shopping bags next to them.

Another, lying on his side, had his hands tied behind his back.

At least two of these corpses had large head wounds.

They have been attending for several days the exhumation of bodies from mass graves in Boutcha and in other localities in the suburbs of kyiv which had been occupied for several weeks by Russian troops.

The Boutcha massacre drew horrified condemnation from around the world and prompted kyiv's allies to take new sanctions against Russia.

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