More evidence of the alleged Bucha Massacre was shared online by independent Russian media outlet Meduza, which obtained high-quality drone footage of the southern district of the city.
The videos, taken between March 23 to March 30 by Russian national Sergei "Botsman" Korotkikh who is fighting alongside Ukraine, allegedly showed the corpses of killed Ukrainian residents of Bucha, a city in the Kyiv Oblast near Ukraine's capital Kyiv. The bodies in the footage were determined to line up with the location of bodies found between April 1 and April 2 after Russian troops left the city.
The videos also note military equipment used by Russian troops near the bodies.
Meduza is an independent Latvia-based Russian- and English-language news site. It was blocked from Russian territory by Russia's communications regulator Roskomnadzor and had previously been designated a "foreign agent," a move the European Union rejected.
The implication of the videos shows that not only did the Bucha Massacre likely occur as Ukraine had alleged but that it also occurred before Russian troops left the city.
It also counters claims by Moscow, who deny that Russian troops were responsible for the mass deaths in the city and instead blamed Korotkikh and his group for it. According to Russia, this group committed the massacre after Russian troops left the city, but the dating done by Meduza seems to cast doubt on these accusations.
Indeed, careful metadata analysis was used to determine that the dates were accurate, and independent experts consulted by Meduza claimed that the first video of the dead was filmed no later than March 26.
This is not the only evidence pointing to the credibility of Ukraine's claims of the Bucha Massacre occurred at the hands of Russian soldiers. Satellite images shared and analyzed by The New York Times show the bodies having laid there for weeks. The satellite images, shared by Maxar Technologies, indicated that many of the civilians were killed several weeks prior, according to The New York Times.
The Bucha Massacre was discovered by Ukraine after Ukrainian troops retook the city.
Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk told AFP in a phone call at the time that the streets of Bucha were "littered with corpses" and that 280 bodies have been collected and buried in mass graves since the location was retaken by the Ukrainian military.
In total, around 320 bodies have been found in Bucha, with just around half (163) having been definitively identified, Fedoruk told Voice of America.
"These are the citizens of our city who were cynically killed, brutally tortured by the Russians," he explained.
"We know their last names, first names, patronymics, where they lived, who they were - either a father, or a son, or a wife, in one family or another."
The alleged massacre sparked widespread condemnation and many accused Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine. However, it is thought to be one of many atrocities committed by Russian troops.
The United Nations' top humanitarian official further supported these allegations after visiting Bucha on Thursday and has called for a probe into the alleged massacre.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths visited the cities of Bucha and Irpin alongside Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna and was met with a horrifying sight.
"He saw a mass grave with bodies wrapped in plastic, dozens of apartment blocks and houses destroyed, and burned-out cars in the street," UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a press briefing.
He echoed Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's call for an "immediate, independent investigation to guarantee effective accountability."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that the situation in the town of Borodyanka was "significantly more dreadful" than in nearby Bucha.
Gadi Zaig and Reuters contributed to this report.