The horrifying images that come from a mass grave in Ukraine 2:49
(CNN Spanish) --
Images of murdered civilians, their bodies abandoned in the snowy streets, and full mass graves are emerging from the city of Bucha, in Ukraine, which was recently recaptured by Ukrainian forces after a month under the control of Russia.
The scene in Bucha and other regions of Ukraine brings back the memory of another similar massacre, that of Katyn, Russia, perpetrated by the Soviet Union (USSR) during World War II and recognized by Moscow in 1990.
ANALYSIS |
Images of dead bodies of civilians lying in the streets of Bucha, Ukraine, shock the world
Human Rights Watch had previously documented allegations of war crimes committed by Russia in occupied areas around Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Kharkiv.
Bucha's landscape after the withdrawal of Russian troops 1:27
But now the international press and the Ukrainian government have had access to the scenes of the events, where the bodies of civilians, in some cases with their hands tied, accumulate in the streets and in mass graves.
At this time, CNN has not been able to independently confirm details of these killings, and has requested comment from the Russian Defense Ministry on the allegations of the execution of civilians in the Kyiv region and other parts of Ukraine.
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But CNN journalists have seen the mass graves.
The Russian Foreign Ministry, for its part, said the images were a "provocation" and a "hoax" on the part of the Ukrainian government.
Poles gather in Katyn on October 31, 1989 to mourn the Polish officers killed by the NKWD (Stalin's secret police) in the Katyn Forest in 1940. (Credit: WOJTEK DRUSZCZ/AFP via Getty Images)
But what exactly happened in Katyn in 1940 and what similarities are there with the events in Bucha?
The Katyn massacre, hidden by the USSR
In September 1939, at the start of World War II, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland while Nazi Germany launched its attack on western Poland.
October 1939: German and USSR troops during the demarcation line ceremony in Brest-Litovsk, after the partition of Poland between the two countries.
(Credit: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
A year later, an estimated 22,000 captured Polish soldiers and civilians were killed in the village of Katyn, Russia, by Soviet forces.
Later forensic evidence found in the mass graves showed that the Polish prisoners were taken into the woods, with their hands tied behind their backs, and one by one, they were shot in the back of the head by the Russians.
The bodies were found by German soldiers in 1943, when - after breaking the non-aggression pact between Germans and Soviets - they had already conquered all of Poland and were in the middle of their invasion of the USSR, but for decades Moscow denied its participation in the massacre and blamed the Nazi regime.
But in 1990, in the last days of the USSR, Moscow admitted that the murders were ordered by the Soviet authorities.
His intention was to pre-emptively suppress any uprising against the then Soviet occupying forces in Poland.
Members of the foreign press watch as the bodies of Poles killed in the Katyn Massacre during World War II are exhumed, Russia, 1943. (Credit: Gabriel Hackett/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Documents about the event were partially declassified in 1992.
The most important of these documents is a note addressed to Josef Stalin, leader of the USSR, by the head of the Soviet secret police Lavrenty Beria, dated March 5, 1940. It recommends the summary execution of the thousands of prisoners of war, including: "Officers of the Polish Army, former officials of the Polish police and intelligence services, members of the Polish nationalist counter-revolutionary parties, members of unmasked rebel counter-revolutionary organizations, deserters and others.
"All of them are sworn enemies of the Soviet power, full of hatred towards the Soviet system," Beria wrote.
The first page of the letter bears the word "Za" — "for" — scrawled in blue pencil with the signatures of Stalin and three Politburo members.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk attend a ceremony at the Katyn massacre memorial museum on April 7, 2010. (Credit: ALEXEY NIKOLSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
The Katyn massacre in 1940 was always a point of contention between Russia and Poland, and in 2010, the lower house of the Russian parliament, the Duma, passed a resolution holding Stalin responsible for the events.
"Acknowledging the responsibility of the totalitarian Stalinist regime for this unprecedented massacre is an important gesture by the Russian parliament, which means that we are moving forward on the path of reconciliation between our countries and peoples," the statement said.
Documents kept for years in secret archives show that the "massacre was committed on the direct order of Stalin," the statement said, according to the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
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