Battle looms in Ukraine's east, grave found in town near Kyiv

BUZOVA, Ukraine, April 10 (Reuters) - A grave with at least two civilian bodies has been found in Buzova village near Kyiv, a Ukrainian official said, the latest reported grave discovered after Russian forces withdrew from areas north of the capital to focus their assault on the east.

Taras Didych, head of the Dmytrivka community that includes Buzova, told Ukrainian television earlier that a grave with dozens of bodies had been found in a ditch near a petrol station.

"Right now, as we are speaking, we are digging out two bodies of villagers, who were killed. Other details I cannot disclose," Didych told Reuters by telephone.

"There are other people who we cannot find. They could be in different places, but this doesn't lessen the pain of the loss of loved ones."

Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the report.

Mounting civilian casualties have triggered widespread international condemnation and new sanctions, in particular over hundreds of deaths in the town of Bucha, to the northwest of Kyiv that until just over a week ago was occupied by Russian forces.

Moscow has rejected accusations of war crimes by Ukraine and Western countries. It has denied targeting civilians in what it calls a "special operation" to demilitarise and "denazify" its southern neighbour. Ukraine and Western nations have dismissed this as a baseless pretext for war.

Russia has failed to take any major cities since invading on Feb. 24 but Ukraine says Russia is gathering its forces in the east for a major assault and has urged people to flee.

Russia is seeking to establish a land corridor from Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and the eastern Donbas region, which is partly held by Moscow-backed separatists, Britain's defence ministry said.

Russian armed forces are also looking to strengthen troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service since 2012, it said in a regular intelligence update on Sunday.

Satellite images released by private U.S. firm Maxar dated April 8 showed armoured vehicles and trucks in a military convoy moving south toward Donbas through a town some 100 kilometres (62 miles) east of Kharkiv.

Some cities in the east are under heavy shelling with tens of thousands of people unable to evacuate.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an address late on Saturday Russia's use of force was "a catastrophe that will inevitably hit everyone."