Highlights: 410 civilian bodies recovered from Kyiv region, says Ukrainian official

The United Nations said Sunday that the discovery of mass graves in Bucha, near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, raised serious questions about possible war crimes, and stressed the importance of preserving evidence, AFP reported.

"What is known to date clearly raises serious and disturbing questions about possible war crimes and grave violations of international humanitarian law," the UN rights office said.

Russian forces shelled Ukraine's second city Kharkiv on Sunday, killing and injuring a number of people, the region's governor said, Reuters reported. "In the evening, the occupiers shelled the Slobidsky district of Kharkiv," Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met the Ukrainian border guards wounded in the battles for Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Gostomel.

According to the Ukrainian military, a person was critically injured after Russian missiles targeted an educational facility at Vasylkiv. The same site has been attacked in the past as well, The Kyiv Independent reported.

Germany will draw up new sanctions with allies against Russia over the "war crimes" committed by Russian troops in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, said Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday. "The murder of civilians is a war crime, and we must relentlessly investigate these crimes committed by the Russian armed forces," he said.

More than half a million people have returned to Ukraine since the start of Russia's invasion in February, the Ukrainian interior ministry said on Sunday.

"During the past week, 144,000 people left Ukraine and 88,000 arrived. In total... around 537,000 of our compatriots have returned to Ukraine," the ministry said, citing data from the national border service.

A Ukrainian official has claimed that 410 civilian bodies were recovered from the Kyiv region retaken from Russia.

Ukraine's military said on Sunday that Russia launched a missile attack on the town of Vasylkiv about 50 kms from Kyiv and hit an air command centre that had already been destroyed and injured some civilians in a nearby college, news agency Reuters reported.

Dmytro Lubinets, the head of human rights panel in the Ukrainian parliament has alleged that the Russian forces shaved the heads of captured Ukrainian women soldiers, The Kyiv Independent reported.

Russia has responded to Ukraine's charges of killing civilians in Bucha near Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Moscow said all the photographs shown by Kyiv are provocations.

Ukraine's military said on Sunday that Russia launched a missile attack on the town of Vasylkiv about 50 kms from Kyiv and hit an air command centre that had already been destroyed and injured some civilians in a nearby college, Reuters reported.

According to Ukrainian government-owned road agency Ukravtodor, the Russian invasion has ruined 23,000 kilometres of roads and 273 structures like bridges and overpasses, The Kyiv Independent.

Ukraine's troops found brutalized bodies with bound hands, gunshot wounds to the head and signs of torture after Russian soldiers withdrew from the outskirts of Kyiv, authorities said Sunday, sparking new calls for a war crimes investigation and sanctions against Russia, AP reported.

The governor of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region said on Sunday that shelling had continued throughout the night and day, and described the situation in the region as "turbulent", Reuters reported. Ukraine's military has said it believes that Russia has pulled forces from the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions to move them to Ukraine's eastern region of Donbas for a new attack aiming to occupy all of both the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Lithuania says it has cut itself off entirely of gas imports from Russia, apparently becoming the first of the European Union's 27 nations using Russian gas to break its energy dependence upon Moscow, AP reports. “Seeking full energy independence from Russian gas, in response to Russia’s energy blackmail in Europe and the war in Ukraine, Lithuania has completely abandoned Russian gas,” Lithuania’s energy ministry said in a statement late Saturday, adding that the measure took effect in the beginning of April.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko has said that the mayors of Snovsk and Beryslav have been released from Russian forces' captivity, The Kyiv Independent reported.

The Kremlin said Sunday it is not possible to completely isolate Russia as the West continues piling sanctions on Moscow over its military operation in Ukraine, AFP reported. "There can be no complete vacuum or isolation of Russia, it is technologically impossible in the modern world," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state TV.

Mykolaiv's mayor Oleksandr Senkevich has claimed that the Ukrainian city came under missile strikes by the Russians, The Kyiv Independent reported. Mykolaiv Mayor said that more precise information on the strikes will be published later.

The European Union on Sunday accused Russian troops of committing atrocities in the Kyiv region after the mayor of the town of Bucha said 300 residents had been killed during a month-long occupation by Russian forces, Reuters reported. 

As evidence mounts of "appalling acts" in the Ukrainian towns of Irpin and Bucha, Russia's attacks on civilians must be investigated as war crimes, Britain's foreign minister said Sunday, AFP reported. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement that the government is seeing "increasing evidence of appalling acts by the invading forces in towns such as Irpin and Bucha", close to Kyiv.

Eleven local community leaders in Ukraine have been kidnapped by Russian forces, deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Sunday, AFP reported. "Up to today, 11 heads of local communities in the regions of Kyiv, Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Donetsk are in captivity," she said in a video message posted on her Telegram account.

According to Luhansk governor, local mayors of Rubizhne, Stanytsia Luhanska, Milove and Markivka are now working for Russia, The Kyiv Independent reported.

All these cities are currently occupied by Russia.

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has demanded strong sanctions against Russia after 20 civilian bodies were recovered on the road in Bucha town near Kyiv. “Bucha massacre was deliberate. Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can. We must stop them and kick them out,” he tweeted.

Lithuanian film director Mantas Kvedaravicius was killed on Saturday in Ukraine's Mariupol, a city whose fate he had documented for many years, according to the Ukrainian Defence Ministry's information agency and a colleague, Reuters reported.

Ukrainian armed forces claim Russia lost 18,000 troops, 644 tanks, 143 planes, 134 helicopters since the Ukraine invasion began, The Kyiv Independent reported.