Here’s what a CNN team on the scene of a mass grave in the Ukrainian town of Bucha saw 

“That is genocide,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on Sunday, talking after pictures emerged of civilian our bodies strewn throughout the streets of Bucha, northwest of the capital of Kyiv, following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the world.

When requested throughout an look on CBS Information’ “Face the Nation” program if Russia is finishing up genocide in Ukraine, Zelensky replied: “Certainly. That is genocide.”

Ukraine would not need to be “subdued to the coverage of the Russian Federation,” Zelensky stated, including that this “is the explanation we’re being destroyed and exterminated.”

“That is taking place within the Europe of the twenty first century. So, that is the torture of the entire nation,” the president confused to viewers. 

The alleged atrocities in Bucha have drawn worldwide outrage, with Western leaders calling for struggle crimes investigations and recent sanctions on Russia.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated Sunday that the State Division would assist doc any atrocities the Russian army dedicated in opposition to Ukrainian civilians. NATO Secretary Normal Jens Stoltenberg referred to as the deaths of civilians in Bucha a “brutality” and stated “I strongly welcome” an investigation by Worldwide Legal Court docket, which has opened an investigation into struggle crimes in Ukraine.

Russia’s response: The Russian Ministry of Protection claimed the intensive footage was “pretend,” saying “not a single native resident suffered from any violent actions,” throughout Russia’s occupation of Bucha. “Within the settlements of the Kiev area, Russian army personnel delivered and issued 452 tons of humanitarian support to civilians,” it stated in a press release.

A separate assertion claimed the footage was staged. “Tales about Bucha appeared in a number of international media retailers without delay, which appears to be like like a deliberate media marketing campaign,” the assertion stated. “Bearing in mind that the troops left the town on March 30, the place was the footage for 4 days? Their absence solely confirms the pretend.”

The Russian authorities has persistently responded to allegations of civilian casualties inflicted by Russian forces with blanket denials. After the Russian air power bombed a maternity hospital on March 9, Russian officers tried to forged doubt on widespread media stories, with one Russian diplomat accusing a sufferer of the bombing — a girl who escaped from the bombing, bloodied and nonetheless pregnant — of being an actor and never an actual sufferer.

CNN has not been in a position to independently affirm the main points across the males’s deaths. CNN had requested remark from the Russian protection ministry concerning allegations of the execution of civilians within the Kyiv area and different components of Ukraine.

CNN’s Nathan Hodge, Chandelis Duster and Jeremy Herb contributed reporting to this submit.