Another mass grave has been found in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, the scene of alleged mass murders of civilians before its recapture by Ukrainian forces in early March, the head of Kyiv’s regional police force said yesterday.

“On April 29, a pit with the bodies of three men was found in the Bucha district,” regional police chief Andriy Nebytov wrote on Facebook.

“The victims were tortured for a lengthy period of time. Bullet wounds were found on the extremities of their bodies. In the end, each of the men was shot through the ear. This is another mass burial made by the occupiers in the Bucha district, the long-suffering district where more than a thousand civilians have been killed and tortured,” Mr Nebytov said.

According to Mr Nebytov’s post, the burial site was found in the forest near the village of Myrotske, 10km northwest of the town of Bucha. Mr Nebytov said the three bodies were being sent for a forensic examination, following a preliminary inspection by the Kyiv regional police.

Last week, Ukraine’s prosecutor identified 10 Russian soldiers she accused of atrocities in Bucha, one of the war’s major flashpoints that helped galvanise Western support of Ukraine. 

Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said on Facebook that the 10 soldiers in Russia’s 64th Separate Motorized Rifle Ground Forces Brigade who occupied Bucha were “involved in the torture of peaceful people”. She did not specifically say that her office had filed criminal charges, and appealed to the public to help develop evidence.

The 10 suspects included officers as high as a general, as well as privates. The Russian government denies it targets civilians. Russian president Vladimir Putin recently honoured the brigade’s work, and Ms Venediktova said he bears responsibility for the soldiers’ actions as their commander-in-chief.

“During the occupation of Bucha, they took unarmed civilians hostage, killed them with hunger and thirst, kept them on their knees with hands tied and eyes taped, mocked and beat them,” Ms Venediktova said. She added that the Russian soldiers threatened to shoot the hostages and looted houses.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, visiting Bucha on Thursday, called for a thorough investigation of alleged war crimes. Ukrainian authorities have said they are investigating thousands of possible war crimes, including killing of civilians, bombing of civilian infrastructure, torture, sexual crimes and use of prohibited weapons.

Russia’s foreign minister says Moscow has evacuated over one million people from Ukraine since the war there began.

The comments yesterday by Sergey Lavrov in an interview with Chinese state news agency Xinhua come as Ukraine has accused Moscow of forcefully sending Ukrainians out of the country. Lavrov said that figure included more than 300 Chinese civilians, but offered no evidence to support his claim in the interview.

Meanwhile, seven Ukrainian soldiers and seven civilians were reportedly released in a prisoner swap yesterday with Russia, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on social media.

“We’re bringing home 14 of our people: seven military personnel and seven civilians,” Ms Vereshchuk wrote on Facebook and Telegram. “To me, this exchange is special: one of the female soldiers is five months pregnant.”

As of yesterday afternoon, the swap had not been confirmed by official Russian sources.