After calls for her to be held accountable, Russia requests a Security Council session to discuss Bucha's "provocation"

Russia asked the UN Security Council to hold a session on Monday to discuss what it described as "a provocation by Ukrainian extremists" in the town of Bucha after Kyiv accused Russian forces of killing civilians there.

"In light of the blatant provocation by Ukrainian extremists in Bucha, Russia has requested a meeting of the United Nations Security Council," Dmitriy Polansky, Russia's first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, wrote on Telegram.

Ukraine's Prosecutor General Irina Vendiktova said on television on Sunday that prosecutors investigating possible war crimes committed by Russian forces had found 410 bodies in towns near Kyiv and examined 140 of them.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Oleksiy Aristovich announced that his country's authorities had found evidence that Russian forces had committed war crimes in the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv.

In a press statement today, Aristovich said that dozens of dead civilians were found in the streets of the suburbs of Irbin, Bucha and Hostomil in Kyiv after the withdrawal of Russian forces from them.

The presidential advisor explained that some of the victims were shot in the head and their hands were tied, while signs of torture appeared on some of the bodies.

Russia, in turn, denied Ukraine's allegations that it had killed civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.

In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry described the footage and photos showing the dead bodies as "another provocation" and a Ukrainian "fabrication".

The ministry said that all Russian military units left the town on March 30.