Russia faces war crime accusations after Bucha discovery: more sanctions on Moscow in the offing

Moscow is facing accusations of war crimes on Monday after the Russian pullout from the outskirts of Kyiv revealed streets strewn with corpses of what appeared to be civilians.

The grisly images of battered bodies left out in the open or hastily buried led to calls for tougher sanctions against the Kremlin.

Ukraine says hundreds of people were killed in the northern town of Bucha and more bodies were found there on Monday.

A team of Associated Press journalists saw the remains of at least four people near a building used as a base by the Russians.

On Sunday, another nine bodies were found in the same compound.

Three of the bodies discovered on Monday lay not far from each other on a dirt road next to the site.

A fourth body was found inside the compound and was identified by relatives as 20-year-old Dmytro Chaplygyn.

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Emotions ran high as they notified the rest of the family and consoled his distraught grandmother, Natalya Vlasenko.

Vitaliy Shulipenko, a relative, said Chaplygyn had been kidnapped by Russian soldiers on March 4.

"They broke in, took him away and no one knows what happened afterwards," he said.

The discovery of his body came as a devastating blow to Vlasenko, who had searched for her grandson for days.

One of her neighbours, Volodymyr Pilhutskyi, said the elderly woman had lost her husband too.

Pavlo Vlasenko was killed by Russian forces who shot him and then burned his body, Pilhutskyi said.

Relatives buried his remains in the front yard of the building where the Vlasenkos lived.

The AP has no independent means of verifying the allegations made by the locals.