Ukrainian forces retake areas near Kyiv amid fear of traps

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian troops moved cautiously to retake territory north of the country’s capital on Saturday, using cables to pull the bodies of civilians off the streets in one town out of fear that Russian forces might have booby-trapped them before leaving. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in his nightly video address hours earlier that departing Russian troops were creating a “catastrophic” situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and “even the bodies of those killed.”

Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, watched Saturday as Ukrainian soldiers backed by a column of tanks and other armored vehicles used cables to drag bodies off of a street from a distance, fearing they might have been rigged to explode.

Locals said the dead — the AP counted at least six — were civilians who were killed by departing Russian soldiers without provocation.