Ukraine and Western countries accuse Russia of "massacres" and of "war crimes" following the discovery of dozens of bodies in several towns in the kyiv region occupied by Russian forces in March.
It all started on April 2 in Bucha, where AFP journalists found 20 bodies on Yablunska street.
Since then, AFP has interviewed dozens of witnesses, accessed a list of bodies found in the city – sometimes with details about the circumstances of death – and death certificates for 10 people.
This is what is known about these events, which provoked worldwide condemnation and new sanctions against Russia.
a devastated city
Bucha, a peaceful city of 37,000 inhabitants 30 kilometers from kyiv, was – like other towns around the capital – the scene of the most violent fighting since the start of the war, on February 24.
The Russian army entered Bucha on February 27, but the battle raged for several days, with the Russian troops suffering heavy losses.
Several civilian evacuation operations were carried out until March 12, when authorities said they no longer had control of or access to the city, where some 4,000 people were trapped.
The fighting around Bucha did not stop and at the end of March the Russian troops withdrew from the city. Mayor Anatoli Fedoruk announced on April 1 that on March 31 he would enter "the history" of the town as "the day of his release".
First macabre discoveries
A team of AFP journalists went to Bucha on April 2 and saw devastated buildings and buildings, car wrecks and rubble-strewn streets.
Walking down Yablunska street, one of the longest in Bucha, AFP journalists discovered, scattered over several hundred meters, the bodies of 20 men in civilian clothes.
One of them was lying on his bicycle, another had bags of provisions next to him. Another had his hands tied behind his back. At least two of those bodies had large head injuries.
The appearance of the corpses suggested that they had been there for at least several days.
How many dead?
During the Russian occupation, several mass graves were also dug by local authorities as the city’s three cemeteries, within gunshot range, were inaccessible.
After the withdrawal of the troops from Moscow, some 410 bodies were found, either in those graves, or in home gardens or simply outdoors, according to local police chief Vitaly Lobass.
"Most died violently" by gunshots, Lobass said on April 20.
In total, more than 1,000 civilian bodies were found in the region, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna.
"crime scene"
In the days after the discovery of the bodies, images of other corpses in Bucha were published in courtyards of buildings, in gardens or in the basement of a sanatorium, some with their hands tied behind their backs.
Then the first testimonials began to appear.
"They shot before my eyes a man who was going to buy food in the supermarket"told AFP Olena, who lived for a month in a basement without electricity with her two children.
On April 13, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the British Karim Khan, visiting Bucha, described Ukraine as "crime scene" and announces that a medical-legal team will work in the town.
On April 25, Khan announced that his investigators had joined the joint investigation team on war crimes in Ukraine, formed in March by Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine with the support of Eurojust, the EU agency for judicial cooperation.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights indicated on her side on April 22 during a mission in Bucha that her investigators "documented the killing, including summary execution, of some 50 civilians".
Russian denials
Moscow immediately denied that its troops had committed a massacre. The Russian military said, hours after the photos of bodies on Yablunska Street were published, that they had discovered "fakes" which proved that it was a staging.
To justify this "staging" they mentioned a corpse that would have moved a hand in a video, or another that was seen getting up in the rearview mirror of a car.
However, an AFP team, in place since April 3, photographed these two motionless bodies in exactly the same place and in the same position as in the video. And an AFP analysis, with better quality video than that used by the Russian army, shows that the bodies do not move.
Vladimir Putin spoke of a "rude and cynical provocation" from Kyiv. The spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, changed for the angle of attack part of her. According to her, either kyiv executed the civilians in Bucha, or transported corpses to the place in a staging.
But satellite images from the US company Maxar Technologies, in addition to analysis of photos taken by AFP, show that several bodies had been there for at least three weeks.
Search for the guilty
Despite Russian denials, Ukraine and its Western allies claim to have "tests" that Russian forces are responsible for most of the civilian deaths in Bucha.
On Thursday, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office announced that ten Russian soldiers from the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade were under investigation for alleged crimes in Bucha linked to "cruel treatment of civilians and other violations of the laws and customs of war".
According to the radio communications of Russian soldiers intercepted by German intelligence services, members of the Wagner group of Russian mercenaries -already deployed in the conflict in the Ukrainian Donbas in 2014, and later in Syria and Africa- also participated in the alleged crimes.