Ukrainian authorities continue gathering up the dead in shattered towns outside the capital amid telltale signs Moscow’s troops killed civilians indiscriminately before retreating.

As gruesome videos and photos of bodies emerge from the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Kremlin-backed media are denouncing them as an elaborate hoax.

In an address to the Security Council, the Ukrainian president lists the torture, rapes and killings of civilians in what he describes as the worst atrocities since World War II.

The scope of devastation is coming into grim focus and sparking a global call for war-crime probes – fueled by the discovery of alleged mass graves and images of dead civilians lining the streets in the Kyiv suburb Bucha.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in the encircled city of Mariupol deepens, with Russian forces blocking evacuation operations for the second day in a row.