Von der Leyen lights a Memorial Candle for the civilians lying on the streets of Bucha, Ukraine

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen lights a candle in near a mass grave in Bucha on the outskirts of Kyiv on Friday. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen today visited Ukraine to see the victims of the Bucha massacre herself as member states came under renewed pressure to wean the bloc off Putin's gas.

Von der Leyen travelled to the war-ravaged town after a senior official admitted that nation states had paid Vladimir Putin €35 billion for oil and gas since he ordered Moscow's troops into Ukraine on February 24.

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The mass killing of civilians in Bucha, near Kyiv, have been widely condemned by the West as war crimes with piles of bodies showing signs of torture and execution pictured after it had been recaptured by Ukrainian forces.

But officials have now revealed that even greater damage was done by Putin's thugs in Borodyanka, northwest of Kyiv and about 15 miles from Bucha.

The are 'significantly more dreadful' than the scenes in Bucha, with residents left to die in the rubble of their bombed homes for a week, president Volodymyr Zelensky said last night.

Von der Leyen was joined in Bucha by the EU's foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell who this week admitted the bloc is paying a billion euros a day for energy provisions.

He said that banning oil imports from Russia would be discussed when EU foreign ministers meet on Monday. But today the bloc rowed back, with a diplomat saying an embargo would not be discussed at the conference in Luxembourg.

Von der Leyen said today that the deaths of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, where forensic investigators started to exhume bodies from a mass grave, showed the 'cruel face' of Putin's army.

Speaking to reporters in Bucha, von der Leyen, wearing a flak jacket, said the EU would do everything to support Ukraine to do 'the necessary steps' to secure membership of the bloc - a demand Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has pressed.

'The unthinkable has happened here. We have seen the cruel face of Putin's army. We have seen the recklessness and the coldheartedness with which they have been occupying the city,' von der Leyen told reporters in Bucha.

'The whole world is mourning with the people of Bucha, and they are the ones who are... defending the border of Europe, defending humanity, defending democracy and therefore we stand with them in this important fight.'

She looked visibly moved by what she saw in a town where Ukrainian officials say hundreds of civilians were killed by Russian forces.

Russia denies targeting civilians in its more than six-week war against Ukraine and has called the allegations that Moscow's forces executed civilians in Bucha while they occupied the town a 'monstrous forgery' aimed at denigrating the Russian army.

The images from Bucha, which was retaken along with other towns north of the capital as Russian forces withdrew to focus efforts on the east of the country, have prompted a renewed effort by Western nations to punish Moscow for the invasion.

As the EU leaders were about to arrive in Kyiv, as many as 50 people were killed and many more were wounded in a rocket strike at a railway station packed with civilians fleeing the threat of a major Russian offensive in the country's east.

Von der Leyen's trip to Kyiv was aimed at offering Zelensky moral and some financial support. Travelling by train from Brussels to Kyiv, she told reporters the most important message she was bringing was that there 'will be the EU path' for Ukraine.

She pledged her support for Kyiv to 'emerge from the war as a democratic country', something, she said, the European Union and other donors would help with.

Josep Borrell, the EU's chief diplomat, echoed the message, telling reporters the visit was a signal that 'Ukraine is in control of its territory'.

'Ukraine is not a country invaded, dominated. There is still a government (which) receives people from outside and you can travel to Kyiv,' Borrell said, adding he hoped the EU would offer another 500 million euros ($543 million) to Kyiv in the coming days.

Zelensky says the war is a direct attack on not only Ukraine's existence, but the security of Europe as a whole.

Russia calls its action a 'special military operation' to demilitarise and 'denazify' its neighbour. Before the invasion, Putin had presented Ukraine's tilt in recent years to the West - including its aspiration to join NATO - as a threat to Russia's security.

Zelensky has urged Brussels to do more to punish Russia, including banning purchases of oil and gas from the country, and has called on the EU to accept Ukraine as a full member.