KYIV, April 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — More than half a million people have returned to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s invasion in February, the Ukrainian interior ministry said.
“During the past week, 144,000 people left Ukraine and 88,000 arrived. In total… around 537,000 of our compatriots have returned to Ukraine,” the ministry said, citing data from the national border service.
The High Commissioner for Refugees on Saturday said 4,176,401 Ukrainians have left their country since Russia launched its invasion on Feb 24.
Tens of thousands have been leaving Ukraine daily since the start of the war in what has become Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.
The UN’s International Organisation for Migration said around 205,000 non-Ukrainians have also fled the country.
In total, more than 10 million people have either left their homes, either to neighbouring countries or being displaced within Ukraine.
Before the war, 37 million people lived in territories controlled by Kyiv. That figure does not include the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 or two eastern regions controlled by pro-Moscow separatists.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has recovered 410 civilian bodies from areas it recently retook from the Russian army in the wider Kyiv region, its prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova said.
Venediktova told national television: “410 bodies of dead civilians were evacuated out of the liberated territories of the Kyiv region on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Forensic experts have already examined 140”.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk says the mayor of the village of Motyzhyn in the Kyiv region was murdered while being held by Russian forces. Vereshchuk adds that there are 11 mayors and community heads in Russian captivity across Ukraine.
In a video address Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the allegedly targeted killings of civilians in towns that the Russians occupied, calling the killers “freaks who do not know how to do otherwise.” He warns that more atrocities may be revealed if Russian forces are driven out of other occupied areas.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Russian troops were guilty of war crimes in Ukraine after Kyiv retook control of areas around the capital and discovered mass graves and apparently executed civilians.
“Russia’s despicable attacks against innocent civilians in Irpin and Bucha are yet more evidence that Putin and his army are committing war crimes in Ukraine,” he said.
“No denial or disinformation from the Kremlin can hide what we all know to be the truth – Putin is desperate, his invasion is failing, and Ukraine’s resolve has never been stronger.”
Johnson added that the UK was supporting the International Criminal Court’s investigation into atrocities committed in Ukraine.
“The Justice Secretary has authorised additional financial support and the deployment of specialist investigators – we will not rest until justice is served,” he added.
International leaders have condemned the reported attacks in the Kyiv-area towns after harrowing accounts from civilians and graphic images of bodies with hands tied behind their backs.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has rejected the claims of atrocities against civilians in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv. — NNN-AGENCIES