Introduction
The timeline of events in Bucha is critical to understanding events around the 2022 massacre. Many narratives about Bucha hinge entirely on the order of events, and on the dates of certain pieces of evidence.
In this article, we lay out several viral claims about the Bucha massacre, and show how each is either debunked or strengthened by the timeline of documented events.
Timeline: March-April 2022
- March 5 – Russian troops take control of Bucha [UN]
- March 9 to 11 – Dark objects of similar size to a human body appear in satellite images of Yablonska Street, Bucha. [NYT]
- March 18, 19 – Additional satellite images taken on these dates by Maxar Technologies show shapes later matched to dead bodies found on one road in Bucha. [AP]
- March 30-31 – Russian forces withdraw from Bucha. [BBC] [HRW] [UN]
- March 31 – Bucha is restored to Ukrainian control. (Source: statements by Ukrainian authorities the following day – April 1.) [Ukrainska Pravda ]
- April 1 – Photos and videos of dead bodies left in the streets begin to emerge from Bucha, and circulate on social media. [Twitter post] [EDMO.eu]
- April 2 – The first journalists enter Bucha. AFP publish photos and videos showing bodies in the street. [AFP]
- April 3 – President Zelensky gives an official address confirming the massacre in Bucha. [Office of the President]
- April 3 – Russian officials claim that the bodies on the streets in Bucha were “staged” by Ukraine and its allies after the Russian withdrawal. [NYT] [Russian official statement]
- April 4 – The New York Times releases a report showing that satellite imagery indicates the bodies appeared on the streets while the town was under Russian control. [NYT]
On April 4, 2022, the NYT Visual Investigation Team reported (emphasis ours):
When images emerged over the weekend of the bodies of dead civilians lying on the streets of Bucha — some with their hands bound, some with gunshot wounds to the head — Russia’s Ministry of Defense denied responsibility. In a Telegram post on Sunday [April 3], the ministry suggested that the bodies had been recently placed on the streets after “all Russian units withdrew completely from Bucha” around March 30. […]
But a review of videos and satellite imagery by The Times shows that many of the civilians were killed more than three weeks ago, when Russia’s military was in control of the town.
One video filmed by a local council member on April 1 shows multiple bodies scattered along Yablonska Street in Bucha. Satellite images provided to The Times by Maxar Technologies show that at least 11 of those had been on the street since March 11, when Russia, by its own account, occupied the town.
To confirm when the bodies appeared, and when the civilians were likely killed, the Visual Investigations team at The Times conducted a before-and-after analysis of satellite imagery. The images show dark objects of similar size to a human body appearing on Yablonska Street between March 9 and March 11. The objects appear in the precise positions in which the bodies were found after Ukrainian forces reclaimed Bucha, as the footage from April 1 shows. Further analysis shows that the objects remained in those position for over three weeks.
Satellite images show bodies lay in Bucha for weeks, despite Russian claims. // New York Times, April 4, 2022
Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a major international news agency whose team were the first journalists on the ground in Bucha. In this tweet, AFP shows an example of visual analysis used to compare satellite imagery of Bucha with photos taken on the ground.
Deutsche Welle (DW) confirms the New York Times’s findings, using satellite photos from a later date:
A before-and-after comparison of satellite images taken on March 19 and the above-mentioned video of April 2 shows that the bodies were in exactly the same position on the road. These images refute Russian claims that the corpses only appeared on the road after the withdrawal of Russian troops on March 30.
Fact check: Atrocities in Bucha not ‘staged’ // DW, April 5, 2022
France 24, one of the major English-language international news channels outside the US, summarized the findings on April 5, 2022:
Other media outlets (including AP and the BBC) also compared satellite images to the footage and photos taken on the ground in Bucha, and came to the same conclusion – that many of these bodies were on the ground for weeks, and appeared there during the period when Russian troops were in control of the village.
Conclusion: Satellite imagery shows that the dead bodies of civilians appeared on the streets when Bucha was controlled by Russian forces, according to Russia’s own official timeline of events. These bodies were left to lie in the street for weeks while the village was still under full Russian control. In addition, extensive witness testimony from Bucha residents attests that Russian soldiers were responsible for these killings.
The Ukrainian military could not have committed these murders, as they were not physically present in Bucha at the time of the killings.
The inescapable conclusion is that the mass killing of civilians in Bucha was committed by Russian occupying forces.
The BBC reports (emphasis ours):
A pro-Russian social media account, Rybar, says the Maxar satellite images shown in this article were not taken on 19 March – but on 1 April, the day after Russian forces departed.
Russia has made unfounded claims the killings were carried out by Ukrainians, but if the bodies were there on 19 March as the satellite images show, that cannot be the case. At that time Russia controlled the area.
Rybar says its conclusions are based on an analysis of shadows from images downloaded from the Maxar database, revealing the date and time at which the photograph was taken.
We contacted Maxar, who said it appeared Rybar had used the company’s image search tools wrongly, and that if correctly used, the images can clearly be shown to be from 19 March.
The BBC has also checked this analysis, comparing images from three separate companies (PlanetLab, Apollo Mapping and Maxar) taken from the available satellite imagery over this period.
We’ve determined that the lengths of the shadows (and therefore the angle of the sun) is consistent with the satellite images having been taken on the morning of 19 March and not on 1 April.
Bucha killings: Satellite image of bodies site contradicts Russian claims // BBC News, April 5, 2022
Conclusion: Both the satellite image provider and visual analysis of the photos confirm that the satellite photographs in question were taken on 19 March, not on 1 April as claimed by some pro-Russian outlets.
This confirms the date of the bodies’ appearance to have occurred during the weeks-long period of Russian occupation of Bucha – and not after liberation by Ukrainian forces.
Russian state-funded propaganda outlet Sputnik claims:
“Photos and videos of alleged dead civilians lying in the streets of Bucha, Ukraine’s Kiev region, according to Moscow, are ‘another production of the Kiev regime for the Western media,’ given that the Russian forces left the city on March 30, and nobody seems to have reported any dead bodies lying around for four days.”
Is this actually true? Let’s look at the timeline of events.
Russia says its forces withdrew from Bucha on 30 March. The Ukrainians say this happened in the early hours of 31 March.
Bucha killings: Satellite image of bodies site contradicts Russian claims // BBC News, April 5, 2022
It is unclear whether the Ukrainian military first re-entered the town of Bucha on 31 March or 1 April.
On 1 April, footage was posted filmed from a car driving through the town which showed bodies on either side of a road.
Bucha killings: Satellite image of bodies site contradicts Russian claims // BBC News, April 5, 2022
The following Tweet, posted April 1, 2022, contains the viral video of bodies lying along Yablonska Street, Bucha. This post is one of the first recorded instances of this video being posted to public social media.
[Edited Dec. 2, 2024: The original Tweet and poster’s account have since been removed from Twitter. It is unclear who removed this content or why. We have replaced the embedded tweet with a screenshot of the original post from our archives.]
In other words –
Less than a day and a half passed between Russian forces’ retreat from Bucha and the first evidence of bodies in the streets (compared to four days, as the Russian authorities claimed).
Massacre in Bucha // Meduza, April 7, 2022
Important note: Access to Bucha was restricted even after it was liberated from Russian troops. Despite the Russian withdrawal, isolated Russian soldiers were reported in the area as late as April 1. Journalists were only allowed into Bucha starting April 2, 2022.
Conclusion: This claim is incorrect. Footage of bodies on the streets of Bucha was posted to social media as early as April 1, 2022.
Video footage of bodies on the streets of Bucha began circulating almost as soon as the Ukrainian military re-entered the town. It appeared on Twitter either on the same day, or – at most – the day after. As Bucha was a closed military zone at the time, this is a reasonable timeline.
Claims of a “days”-long delay in reporting the bodies in Bucha are false.
A reasonable question: If all this evidence exists in satellite images of bodies lying in the streets, how could that possibly have been missed by media and intelligence agencies across the world? If photographic evidence had already been taken in mid-March of 2022, why did no one notice until Ukraine took back control of Bucha?
To address this question, let’s take a look at what the original satellite images actually look like.
This very short video clip shows a comparison of the satellite view of Yablonska Street in Bucha, before and after bodies appeared on the road (Feb. 28 vs March 19, 2022).
This particular section of satellite imagery from March 19, 2022, is one of the clearest satellite images of the bodies on the streets in Bucha during the period of Russian occupation. It has been posted by the BBC, the New York Times, and other major news outlets who conducted an analysis of the visual evidence from Bucha.
At the top of this BBC article, you can view the image of the street in its maximum available resolution. You will note right away that the quality is not much better than in the video and image embedded above.
What we see: Blurry, pixelated shapes in shades of gray and brown. Some of them look a lot like human bodies if our eye has already been told what to look for. Some of them are featureless shapes that could be just about anything.
Viewing the original satellite images, it is not surprising that they were not flagged as showing bodies before the on-the-ground photos were released.
It’s only when compared with the photos from the street, that the true value of the evidence from the satellite images becomes clear.
Jeffrey Lewis, a satellite imagery expert who has seen the Maxar images, described the process of deducing what the images meant as “very straightforward.”
“You see pictures on the ground that show bodies relative to cars and buildings, and in satellite images, you can see the lumps on the ground in the same position next to the same cars and buildings.
“What the satellite images show is that the bodies were present while the Russians controlled the area,” said Lewis, who is director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
Satellite images show civilian deaths in Ukraine town while it was in Russian hands // Reuters, April 5, 2022
Here’s a list of articles / video reports that do this kind of visual analysis for multiple points within Bucha: matching specific bodies photographed on the ground in Bucha after the Russian withdrawal, with the fuzzy shapes visible in satellite imagery during the time Russia occupied Bucha in March 2022.
- 4 April, 2022 – New York Times
- 5 April, 2022 – Sky News
- 5 April, 2022 – CNN
- 6 April, 2022 – El Pais (video)
- 7 April, 2022 – Deutsche Welle (DW) (video)
- 11 April, 2022 – BBC News
- 13 April, 2022 – Centre for Information Resilience
Conclusion: Upon viewing the original satellite images, it becomes clear why they weren’t initially flagged as showing bodies. The images aren’t high quality enough to identify the shapes in them as bodies using the satellite photos alone.
It is only when combined with the photos of bodies taken on the ground, after the Russian withdrawal, that the nature of the fuzzy shapes seen in the satellite photos becomes apparent.
Condition of the bodies
A summary from the BBC of a Russian Foreign Ministry talking point:
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted: “It is of particular worry that all the bodies of the people whose images have been published by the Kiev regime are not stiffened after at least four days.”
According to the Ukrainian military, the Russians left in the early hours of 31 March. The Russians say they left on 30 March.
Bucha killings: Satellite image of bodies site contradicts Russian claims // BBC News, April 5, 2022
The BBC goes on in that same article to add more context:
In the hours after death, bodies go through a process called rigor mortis where muscles contract and stiffen.
We asked a forensic pathologist for their opinion on whether a body would be expected to be “stiffened” after four days. One who has worked in places including Kosovo and Rwanda on war crimes investigations, who did not want to be named, told the BBC that by four days rigor mortis has “usually subsided”.
The expert quoted by the BBC is backed up by forensic science. The medical literature agrees that rigor mortis does not last forever in a dead body – in fact, it typically passes within a few days, leaving the corpse limp again.
This article (from a publisher of training materials for healthcare professionals) explains some of the basic terms in forensics. This is what they say on the subject:
Rigor mortis generally disappears 36 hours after death, followed by a phase known as secondary flaccidity.
Methods of Estimation of Time Since Death // StatPearls Publishing, October 28, 2019
Satellite images (referenced earlier in this article) show that some of the bodies on the street had lain there at least since March 11 – a period of over 20 days between death and their documentation on April 1.
Taking this information into account, we would in fact expect these bodies to lack stiffness after a period of weeks. A weeks-old body that still had rigor mortis would actually be the anomaly in this situation.
Conclusion: Russia’s Foreign Ministry claims it is suspicious that there is a lack of stiffness (rigor mortis) in corpses dead for four or more days. In fact, rigor mortis is a brief phase that does not usually last more than 36 hours (1.5 days) after death.
The presence of rigor mortis in these corpses would have been strange. Its absence is not.
Russian claim – quote from the Russian representative’s speech to the OSCE, 5 April 2022 (emphasis ours):
Of particular concern is the fact that in all the images published by the Kyiv regime the bodies had not stiffened after several days and do not have the characteristic signs of livor mortis, and the wounds are filled with uncoagulated blood.
OSCE: SPECIAL MEETING OF THE PERMANENT COUNCIL (1366th Plenary Meeting) // Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), April 5, 2022
This BBC article reviews some of the claims made by Russian officials, in this OSCE speech and elsewhere:
The Russian tweet also claimed that the bodies “have no typical cadaver stains”.
It’s not clear what this means but the pathologist said the appearance of someone who has died from a gunshot wound or other act of violence will vary widely depending on the weapon used, from what distance they were shot and so on.
There isn’t always a lot of visible blood as it may pool underneath people or soak into heavy clothing, especially if someone is dressed for cold weather. The tweet could be referring to the fact the blood within your body pools downwards after death as it stops circulating around the body, which can lead the skin to turn reddish or purple.
But if someone is lying down, the site of this blood pooling and discolouration may well not be visible from an image alone.
Bucha killings: Satellite image of bodies site contradicts Russian claims // BBC News, April 5, 2022
So far: unconclusive. Let’s dig into this further – What is livor mortis?
Livor mortis, lividity or dependent hypostasis refers to settling of blood to the dependent parts (those closest to the ground) of the body following death. This occurs when the circulation stops and the blood settles in vessels under the effect of gravity and can be seen as pink or purple congestion of the skin.
Atlas of Forensic Pathology: Prahlow & Byard // Humana Press, December 21, 2021
Do the bodies found in Bucha truly lack “cadaver stains”? Not at all. An examination of photos taken of the cadavers in Bucha reveal many bodies with patches of discolored skin that match the description of rigor mortis. We looked through these photos so you don’t have to.
Examples (warning – graphic):
- Image from Alamy – Dark and discolored skin
- Image from Getty – Red/purple discoloration of skin
- Image, published by the Irish parliament as part of a 2023 exhibition – bloating and discoloration. (Photos in this album courtesy of Reuters and Alex Kent.)
The Russian claim of a complete absence of cadaver stains / livor mortis is false.
At least some of the corpses do show livor mortis stains. However, not the bodies have such stains visible in photographs.
Would we expect to see these marks in every photograph of corpses from Bucha? Is it suspicious that they don’t appear in many photos? Let’s check what the medical literature has to say about where and how livor mortis appears.
Livor mortis stains appear on the lowest parts of the body – those closest to the ground. (Source: Atlas of Forensic Pathology) For example: in a body lying face-upward, these markings will typically appear on the buttocks and back. (Source)
Many of the bodies in Bucha were found fully-clothed for outdoor winter weather, with the only exposed flesh being their face. If these bodies lay on their back or side in the hours following death, when livor mortis forms, we would expect livor mortis markings to appear on their back or side – areas usually hidden by clothing.
Unless a cadaver spent the first few hours after death face-down, and was then moved to lie face-up before being photographed, we wouldn’t expect livor mortis stains to be visible on their face.
This is not the case for most of the photographs that came out of Bucha after the Russian withdrawal. Many of the photographs published are of the bodies in their original positions, before being moved.
Counterexample: In what situation are we most likely to see livor mortis on the exposed face of a fully-clothed cadaver? This would happen if a corpse lay face-down for the first few hours after death, and was then moved before being photographed so that the face was visible.
Here is one example from Bucha that shows that exact scenario. (Warning – graphic):
- Kneeling face-down against the wall – this photo shows how the bodies lay before being moved [Source]
- After being moved from their initial position – one face is clearly visible, with stains shading from pink to dark purple [Source]
- After removal from the basement. Three faces are visible. All show stains/discoloration. One face also shows bloating. [Source]
Conclusion: Russia’s claim is clearly false – It is untrue that no livor mortis or “cadaver stains” appear on bodies photographed in Bucha. A number of the bodies photographed do show marks that appear to be livor mortis, contradicting claims from Russian officials.
Many photos of bodies in Bucha do not display signs of “cadaver stains”. But since most of the bodies were photographed fully-clothed, with little skin visible, there is no reason to expect to see livor mortis stains in these photographs.
A final note – We have tried unsuccessfully to figure out what the Russian official statement meant when referring to “uncoagulated blood”. Though we reviewed numerous photos from Bucha, we did not succeed in finding an example of this. If anyone has insights, please send us a message!
Though not mentioned in the Russian statement to the OSCE quoted above, some have asked why the photographs shown in the media show bodies that appear to be relatively “fresh”, when satellite imagery shows that many of the bodies have been exposed to the elements for days or weeks.
There are a couple of answers to this question.
First: the low temperatures. March is cold in Ukraine. For most of the period in question, the temperatures in Bucha were below, or only slightly above, freezing. This paper goes into some detail about factors that might affect the condition of the bodies killed in Ukraine during war, using some examples from Bucha.
The positioning of these bodies, along with the environmental conditions at the time of death, will impact the process of decomposition, which will in turn effect the ability of specialists to positively identify decedents.
Considering environmental conditions, when Russia first invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, temperatures in Kyiv and Bucha ranged from sub-zero to just above zero °C. As the war progressed into March, temperatures reached slightly above zero before increasing into the low single digits and teens (3–13 °C) in April. Temperatures in the coastal region of Mariupol were a few degrees higher for each month. Overnight lows were below or near zero degrees Celsius for all areas. Snow was visible in some videos [66] during the months of March and April, although it was not accumulating on the ground.
As a result of these temperatures, decomposition appeared minimal to date in those bodies that were exposed on the surface. Usually, insect activity is a key driver of soft tissue decomposition but at low temperatures, insects are either inactive or have limited activity [67]. Hence, flies that would typically be attracted to decaying remains and lay eggs in the orifices of bodies to hatch and feed on soft tissue, did not appear to be present in online images [68]. For this reason, microbial degradation was likely the primary driver of decomposition and while it will not be inhibited at these temperatures, it will be considerably slowed [69,70].
Environmental conditions and bodily decomposition: Implications for long term management of war fatalities and the identification of the dead during the ongoing Ukrainian conflict // Forensic Science International: Synergy, August 23, 2022
These are some factors that help explain why some of the corpses in Bucha were found in relatively good condition.
Second: Many of the bodies found in Bucha do in fact show clear signs of decay. Here are some examples of photos showing this (warning: graphic):
- Alamy 1 (alt angle)
- Alamy 2 – Dark and discolored skin, missing flesh
- Alamy 3 – Dark and discolored skin
- Getty – Red/purple discoloration of skin
- Getty – Mild bloating. Shriveled and discolored fingers.
- Alex Kent (photographer) – discolored skin, blackened fingertips and nails
- Image, published by the Irish parliament as part of a 2023 exhibition. Images courtesy of Reuters and Alex Kent. – bloating and discoloration.
- Image, published by the Irish parliament as part of a 2023 exhibition. Images courtesy of Reuters and Alex Kent. – bloating visible in the face of the middle body.
Why were photographs of these bodies not shown in the mainstream media or in my feed?
Or, to rephrase that question: Why don’t most of the images circulated by the news media and on social networks show grotesquely decaying corpses?
The answer is pretty easy to understand when asked like that. For the commercial media, displaying these photos would likely lead to outraged customers and cancelled subscriptions. On social media, displaying these types of photos will often lead to content being reported and deleted. Even on social networks where this content is permitted, general wisdom says that this will often cause your reach to be stifled by the platform’s algorithm.
Here’s an example: an article from social media tool company SocialPilot, warning that posting graphic content can harm an account’s reach.
Be careful about the kind of actions or content you post on your profile. Stay well away from violence, graphic content, misinformation, sexually suggestive images, and spam to avoid getting shadowbanned on Instagram.
The question isn’t only practical or commercial. War and crime journalists encounter this dilemma regularly: When is it right to publish graphic content?
On one hand, graphic images can help their audience understand the realities of the situation being reported. Disturbing images showing gore and violence can sometimes lead people to take action. However, it can also cause an audience to become numb and disconnected from the issue. It can cause people to avoid the news. Wouldn’t you avoid turning the news on the TV in your living room, if you thought there was even a small chance they’d show a decaying corpse where your child might see it?
Here is an excerpt from an article by Danny Kemp of AFP, one of the first journalists to document the Bucha massacre. Two weeks after his team’s photographs were shown around the world, he reflects on this very question.
The poet T.S. Eliot famously said that “human kind cannot bear very much reality”, and this is one of the paradoxes of photo and video journalism. How do you convey the horror of the situation without being too graphic, so that people will not scroll past it on their mobile phones? And how do you somehow try to preserve the dignity of these victims who have been left shorn of it by the manner of their deaths?
Conclusion: There are many photographs out of Bucha showing clearly decomposing bodies. However, most news outlets and users on social media avoid publishing photos showing graphic death and decomposition.
Reasons for this choice range from: Journalistic ethics (respect for the dead and their family), concern over losing customers or followers, fear of being banned or “shadowbanned” by a social media platform, and more.
All sources:
Satellite images show civilian deaths in Ukraine town while it was in Russian hands
Address by the President of Ukraine on the Massacre in Bucha
Mayor of Bucha says the city has been liberated from the occupiers
Killings of Civilians: Summary Executions and Attacks on Individual Civilians in Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy Regions …
Before-and-after photos show Ukraine’s swift restoration of Bucha, once a byword for the horrors of Russian occupation
Environmental conditions and bodily decomposition: Implications for long term management of war fatalities and the identification of the dead during the ongoing Ukrainian conflict
Bucha: A street filled with bodies
Twitter post: Footage of bodies posted on 1 April
UN report details summary executions of civilians by Russian troops in northern Ukraine
