Firefighters in Ukraine's Kyiv region were still working on September 10 to extinguish a fire at warehouse premises in Bucha district after a Russian attack, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration.
Tkachenko did not say exactly where the fire had broken out. Social media users, however, reported a large-scale blaze in Hostomel, a town in Bucha district, following the Russian strike.
To avoid what he described as unnecessary speculation and panic, Tkachenko later said the Russian attack had set fire to a warehouse used for civilian purposes. He said the situation was under control and that, according to preliminary information, no one had been injured.
17 sites damaged across three districts
According to the Kyiv Regional Military Administration, air raid sirens sounded across the region for almost the entire day on September 10. In Bucha, Fastiv and Obukhiv districts, 17 objects were damaged, including private houses, vehicles, warehouse and production buildings, a hangar and a veterinary clinic.
Kyiv region authorities said a Russian strike on the morning of September 10 also killed one person and injured two others.
Bucha and Hostomel's wartime history
Bucha, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, became internationally known early in Russia's full-scale invasion after allegations emerged of the mass killing of civilians during a Russian occupation of the town in 2022. Neighboring Hostomel is home to Antonov Airport, the site of heavy fighting in the opening days of the war.
Part of a wider pattern of strikes
Russian forces have regularly attacked Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure across all regions of the country, using attack drones, missiles, guided aerial bombs known as KABs, and multiple rocket launchers.
Ukrainian authorities and international organizations describe these strikes as war crimes committed by the Russian Federation and say they have a deliberate, targeted character. They say strikes aimed at depriving people of electricity, heat, water supply, communications and medical care, along with other conditions necessary for life, are a sign of genocidal intent.
Why some call the strikes genocide
Lawyers, genocide researchers and human rights defenders say that during the full-scale invasion, Russia has committed against Ukrainian citizens the full range of acts that can fall under the legal definition of genocide. They cite repeated statements by Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, and other Russian officials that Ukrainians do not exist as a separate people, that Ukraine is an artificially created nation, that those who reject this view must be destroyed, and that Ukraine and Ukrainians should not exist in the future, as well as public calls for the destruction of Ukrainians.
They also point to targeted shelling of life-support systems and healthcare facilities aimed at depriving people of electricity, heating, water, communications and medical care; the persecution and killing of people with pro-Ukrainian views in occupied territory; the killing of teachers, artists and others who carry and pass on Ukrainian culture; the introduction of a Russian curriculum in occupied schools designed to change children's identity; the deportation of unaccompanied children to Russia; and the removal of Ukrainian books from libraries, the looting of museums, and the targeted theft of artifacts documenting Ukraine's ancient history.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. It defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, including killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy the group, preventing births within the group, and forcibly transferring children from the group to another. The convention's 149 member states are obliged to prevent and punish such acts in both war and peacetime.
Russia's leadership denies that its military deliberately targets civilian infrastructure in Ukrainian cities and villages, and denies killing civilians or destroying hospitals, schools, kindergartens, and energy and water facilities.
