MOSCOW: Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, acknowledged that Russia has "suffered considerable losses" in its ongoing conflict with Ukraine, but denied that Moscow has committed "war crimes" in Kiev.

"We've lost a considerable number of troops." "This is a terrible tragedy for us," Peskov said on on Thursday, without specifying the number of Russians killed. "Our military is doing everything possible to bring that operation to a close. And we do expect that in the coming days, in the near future, this operation will achieve its objectives or be completed by negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegations," he said, referring to the continuing conflict as a "operation."

He said that the photos and videos of dead bodies littering the streets of Ukrainian cities were a "bold fake" and that "we're living in days of fakes and falsehoods." "We deny that the Russian military had anything to do with these atrocities, and that dead bodies were seen on the streets of Bucha," the spokesman said.

He insisted that the entire incident in Bucha, which has sparked worldwide criticism after photographs of dead civilians were released, was a "well-staged implication, nothing else."

The Russian Defense Ministry has previously claimed that the Ukrainian government had fabricated images and films of the slaughter in Bucha.

Following weeks of severe shelling, Russian troops withdrawn from Ukraine's Kiev and Chernihiv districts as an act of "goodwill," according to the Kremlin spokesman.

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