A man looks at bags containing the bodies of civilians in Bucha. /
The BND collects numerous wiretaps from Russian soldiers in which they describe the crimes
The German foreign intelligence services BND have intervened by radio communications of the Russian troops in Ukraine that apparently confirm the massacre of civilians committed in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. Spiegel Online reveals that the wiretaps contain conversations between the Russian military in which they agree to murder inhabitants of that town. Some of the communications refer to specific cases of corpses whose photographs were taken after the withdrawal of Russian troops from northern kyiv. The online edition of the weekly highlights that in one of the radio communications a soldier explains to another that he had shot down a man who was traveling by bicycle together with his companions. The images of his body were released last Sunday after Ukrainian troops recovered Bucha. In another communication, a military man explains that captured Ukrainian soldiers are first interrogated and then executed.
After the withdrawal of the Russian troops to the north and their departure from Bucha, numerous bodies of civilians were found in that town lying in its streets, as well as a mass grave next to the town church with the bodies of several murdered inhabitants. The Russian government has vehemently denied that its troops are responsible for these war crimes and has stated that the images released by Ukraine of Bucha are a montage with fake photos and videos, a reaction that has been described as “cynical” in Germany by the chancellor President Olaf Scholz, who, like many other Western leaders, demands that those responsible for this massacre be brought to justice.
Spiegel Online highlights that the wiretapping carried out by the BND could serve to disarm Moscow’s claims and as evidence for investigations into war crimes by Russian troops committed so far after the invasion of Ukraine. The intercepted communications apparently show that the atrocities recorded after the withdrawal of the Russian military are not casual crimes or isolated actions of soldiers acting on their own. The material indicates, according to the weekly, that the murder of civilians is part of the regular activity of the Russian military and that it is probably part of its strategy. With the massacres they intend to sow fear among the civilian population and stifle any type of resistance. The data collected by the BND has apparently already been delivered to the German executive and the competent parliamentary committees.