Russian soldier spoke of drunkenly killing civilians in phone call near Bucha: 'I think I'm going crazy'

• Intercepted phone calls detail a Russian "cleansing" operation in Bucha, the AP reported.
• Soldiers talk about killing villagers, including children, during the Russian occupation.

Publicly, the Russian government has denied that its forces committed atrocities while occupying Bucha, a village outside the Ukrainian capital. But in phone calls back home, soldiers in the area outside Kyiv spoke of carrying out a deadly "cleansing" operation that involved killing scores of local people, including children, who were suspected of aiding Ukraine's resistance to foreign occupation.

"I think I'm going crazy," one soldier, named Maksym, told his wife in a March 21 phone call, a recording of which was intercepted and revealed Thursday in a joint investigation by the Associated Press and PBS's "Frontline."

In the call, the soldier admitted he had been drinking but assured his wife that it would not affect his ability to defend himself.

"It's easier to shoot civilians," he said. Indeed, "I've already killed so many civilians."

At least 400 people were killed when Russia occupied Bucha, located 20 miles northeast of Kyiv. Their bodies were uncovered when Russia's attempt to capture the seat of Ukraine's government failed and Moscow ordered a retreat in the opening weeks of the war.

Survivors told Insider that Russian soldiers initially acted as if they believed themselves liberators, their government having convinced them that Ukraine is run by Nazis. "They thought they came here to save us," one resident said.

But in keeping with a belief that the invasion was an act of liberation was the conviction that all who resisted, or assisted the fight for Ukraine's sovereignty, were fascists worthy of death.

Even children.

In a March 14 phone call, another soldier, going by the name Lyona, told his mother about a child who was stopped at a Russian checkpoint. On the boy's phone, soldiers found information about the "location and logistics" of Russian forces, the AP reported.

"He was shot on the spot," the soldier said.

In fact, another Russian soldier, Ivan, said in phone calls placed March 17 to 18, the occupying soldiers "shoot everyone, who gives a fuck who it might be: a child, a woman, an old lady, an old man. Anyone who has weapons gets killed. Absolutely everyone."