Ukraine official negotiating with Russia said the peace talks turned darker after evidence emerged of a massacre in Bucha

• A Ukrainian negotiator says the mood at peace talks with Russia has changed notably this week.

• It followed Ukraine accusing Russia of killing more than 300 civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.

A member of the Ukrainian team negotiating with Russia in peace talks says the sentiment underpinning the process has changed irrevocably after evidence of the mass killing of civilians Bucha, near Kyiv.

After Ukrainian forces retook the suburb in early April, officials said Russian troops had killed more than 300 civilians while occupying it, in some cases raping women before shooting them.

Russia denies killing civilians, saying the deaths were staged by the US to paint Russia as evil. Many Western nations have condemned Russia, and the UN voted to suspend Russia from the body's Human Rights Council on Thursday.

Senior Russian and Ukrainian officials held several rounds of peace talks since February 28, but without reaching a specific agreement.

In a televised statement Friday, Mykhailo Podolyak, one of Ukraine's peace negotiators and aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the tone of peace talks had forever changed because of Bucha, RBC-Ukraine reported.

"Today, there is some change in the negotiating background, in connection with the events in the Kyiv region, not only Bucha – and this leaves a certain imprint," he said.

"This is not a question of the actual conduct of negotiations, but of the emotional background on which these negotiations are conducted. Ukrainian society is now much more negative about any negotiation concept that concerns the Russian Federation."

"The Russian Federation in the world is increasingly not perceived as a civilized state that lives by the rules of civilization," he added.

Peace talks were initially held on Ukraine's border with Belarus but have since moved to Turkey, which has positioned itself as a mediator.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Ibrahim Kalin, a senior adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said the scene in Bucha had made it "more difficult for the negotiations to continue as before."

"The Ukrainians are devastated, as we all are ... these are really horrible, completely unacceptable, inhumane actions and whoever has done that should be brought to justice," he said.

As Ukraine seeks a cease-fire, Zelenskyy and his negotiators have shown willingness to declare neutral status and abandon plans to join NATO, per Russia's demands.

However, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that Ukraine's most recent peace proposal, submitted on Wednesday, contained "unacceptable" elements such as a clause allowing Ukraine to hold military drills with allies without needing Russia's permission.

Despite the impasse, Podolyak said Friday that peace talks were constantly ongoing at various levels of seniority.

"There are meetings when delegations meet directly with each other, and some interim results are summed up. And there is a permanent online process involving working groups-diplomatic, legal, military, and so on."

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