Ukraine leader tells U.N. Russia committed 'war crimes'

STORY: "They killed entire families. Adults and children. And they tried to burn the bodies."

In an impassioned speech to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday (April 5) , Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy accused invading Russian troops of committing "the most terrible war crimes" since the Second World War.

"They were killed in their apartments, houses, blown up with grenades, crushed by tanks while sitting in their cars. Women were raped and killed in front of their children."

Zelenskiy cited horrifying images and testimony from places such as Bucha, outside Kyiv, where bodies, some of them with hands bound, were found laying on the streets after Russian troops withdrew.

A Kremlin spokesperson denied Russian soldiers had killed civilians in Bucha, calling images of the dead a "monstrous forgery."

But satellite images undercut Russian claims the civilian deaths were staged or faked.

These pictures, provided to Reuters by U.S. company Maxar Technologies, were taken in March and appear to show bodies of civilians on a street in Bucha, while it was still occupied by Russian troops.

Bucha resident Tetyana Nedashkivska told Reuters her husband was dragged from their apartment by Russian troops.

After the Russians withdrew, she found his body - along with other victims - in a basement stairwell.

"When I came down, I recognized him by his shoes, his trousers. His face was mutilated, his body was cold. They turned him over a little. My neighbor still has a picture of his face. He had been shot in the head, mutilated, tortured. I went to the Red Cross and asked them what I should do. I will show you his grave, wait. He was buried a meter deep, so dogs wouldn’t eat him. That was it."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians.

"What we’ve seen in Bucha is not the random act of a rogue unit. It's a deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities. The reports are more than credible, the evidence is there for the world to see.”

He offered no direct evidence to support his assertion of a deliberate campaign.

"Where is the security promised by the Security Council?"

Zelenskiy urged the U.N. Security Council to strip Russia of its veto power, which he said was the reason the 15-member body has been so far unable to take action over the Russian invasion.