A British paramedic describes seeing rotting corpses hung from trees when he entered the Ukrainian town of Bucha shortly after Russian forces retreated

• A British EMT told inews he was one of the first to enter Bucha after the Russian occupation.
• The 23-year-old describes dead bodies hanging from trees and booby-trapped corpses.

One of the first people to enter the Ukrainian town of Bucha after the Russian army retreated has described the horrendous scenes he witnessed.

Conor Braithwaite — a 23-year-old British paramedic — spoke to inews and painted a terrifying picture of what he came across as one of the first people to arrive in the destroyed towns of Bucha and Irpin after Ukrainian forces drove the Russian invasion back from the outskirts of Kyiv.

When he arrived in the country, he expected to provide medical care, help build field hospitals, and train Ukrainian forces. In reality, he had to cut down corpses hanging from trees, clear dead bodies, and walk through streets lined with "rotting" bodies that had their "hands tied" and were "booby-trapped," he told inews.

The photos from Bucha show some of the scenes that Braithwaite describes — including mass graves — but he said they don't even touch the sides.

"I don't even want to talk about it after the shit we've seen. It was awful. Let's put it this way; I've seen some of the photos the press has put out — if you think that's bad, times that probably by ten. And then times it again," he told inews.

On Friday, the European Union named and blacklisted a Russian military commander, describing him as a "butcher" of Bucha, per al-Jazeera. Col. Azatbek Omurbekov of the 64th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade led Russian troops as they "killed, raped and tortured civilians in Bucha," the EU said.

Approximately 1,000 bodies — including those of 31 children — have been recovered from Bucha according to Ukrainian authorities, the BBC reported.

Braithwaite explained to inews how he's still on the front line over three months later, having headed initially to Ukraine to spend a week delivering aid.

Now, for the Londoner, it's normal to be woken up by tank fire.

"I don't give a fuck anymore. I just go back to bed. I'll get back into my sleeping bag with my helmet and body armor on. It's just become normality now," Braithwaite told inews.

He described the challenging conditions of trying to save lives as battle rages.

When there's a report of a casualty, "nine out 10 times" someone will be under attack, meaning they have to "literally grab the patient, throw him on the back of a 4X4, and then I'll do everything on the way to the hospital," he told inews.

Braithwaite told inews that his original team had 20 people, but now only two remain.

He says that he believes "everyone in the UK has forgotten about this."

Inews reports that the paramedic has gone to Ukraine under a program Dr. Alexy Titievsky — a Ukrainian-born doctor based in Northampton, England, who previously served as a Ukrainian military medic — organized.

Titievsky told the outlet: "I'm trying now to bring the level of field medicine in Ukraine to the level of the western standard."