Ukraine breakfast briefing: Bucha 'mass killings' could be tip of iceberg, suggests Zelensky

The 'mass killing' of civilians in the city of Bucha could be the tip of the iceberg, Ukraine's president Volodomyr Zelensky has suggested.

The international media has reported seeing bodies scattered across the streets of the city, on the outskirts of Kyiv, after Russian troops withdrew from the area. Photos show some dead bodies with bound hands, and close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture are also being reported.

Russia's Foreign Minister Serge Lavrov has claimed it is a “fake attack” and that the dead bodies were “staged”. However, in a speech released in the early hours of this morning, Mr Zelensky said: "There is ample evidence that it is Russian troops who destroy peaceful cities, abduct, torture, kill civilians."

And Mr Zelensky claimed that "information" suggests the "mass killings" could be even worse in some other "liberated" cities, such as in Borodyanka. "At present, there is information about more than three hundred people killed and tortured in Bucha alone," said Zelensky. "It is likely that the list of victims will be much larger when the whole city is checked. And this is only one city.

"There is already information that the number of victims of the occupiers may be even higher in Borodyanka and some other liberated cities.

"In many villages of the liberated districts of the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the occupiers did things that the locals had not seen even during the Nazi occupation 80 years ago. The occupiers will definitely bear responsibility for this."

Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator Garry Kasparov also suggested the world is yet to witness the worst of what has happened in Ukraine. On Twitter, Mr Kasparov said: