Vladimir Putin’s spokesman has denied Russia has carried out war crimes in Ukraine as he told Sky News we are “living during days of fakes and lies” – but admitted the “significant” loss of Russian troops is a “tragedy”.

Dmitry Peskov, in his first broadcast interview with Western media, said verified photos and satellite images of dead civilians in the streets of Ukrainian cities were a “bold fake”.

“We deny the Russian military can have something in common with these atrocities and that dead bodies were shown on the streets of Bucha,” he told Sky News.

He maintained the whole situation in Bucha, where photos show many murdered Ukrainian civilians, was a “well-staged insinuation, nothing else”.

Asked to reveal how many civilians have died since the war began on 24 February, Mr Peskov said he did not want to answer as the numbers were not “double confirmed”.

“As we’re living in during days of fakes and lies,” he said.

Mr Peskov continued to insist it was not a war but a “special military operation” that was necessary because, he said, Ukraine has been an “anti-Russian centre” since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea.

He did admit: “We have significant losses of troops and it’s a huge tragedy for us.”

But he claimed Russia withdrew from the Ukrainian regions of Kyiv and Chernihiv as an act of “goodwill”.

“It was a goodwill act to lift tension from those regions and show Russia is really ready to create comfortable conditions to continue negotiations,” he said.

The Pentagon said on Wednesday Russian forces fully withdrew from the capital and Chernihiv, a city to its north in the 24 hours before.

But US intelligence authorities warned the Russians may have left mines behind and were still assessing the damage to both people and infrastructure.