The streets of Bucha, which were littered with rubble and destroyed Russian tanks just weeks ago, are clear once again after an incredible cleaning effort by Ukrainian locals.

Volunteers have been working tirelessly to clean up the town's neighbourhoods, with images on Monday showing a place that is almost unrecognisable from the pictures that shocked the world earlier this month. 

Atrocities carried out by Russian forces were uncovered after the town was liberated from its occupiers, resulting in international condemnation of Moscow's actions. 

Despite this, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a decree recognising all members of the brigade - believed to have carried out the war crimes in the town - for their 'mass heroism' in defending 'state interests'.

Photographs from the suburban town near Kyiv showed workers shovelling gravel and sweeping the heavily-shelled roads which were turned into a war zone in the early days of Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Gone are the burnt out wreckages of Russian military vehicles, much of the debris from destroyed Ukrainian homes, and the bodies of slain civilians that lined the streets after Kyiv's forces re-took the town after Russia's brutal month-long occupation. Now, the scenes of devastation have been replaced with signs of life returning.

In one image, two men in high-visibility jackets are shown working together to shovel debris into the bucket of an excavator. Another shows a team of locals working their way down the road, filling a skip with rubble. 

Others are shown working next to a house - its roof caved in from shelling. It appears to be one of the few buildings on the street that remains at least partially in-tact. Piles of rubble, once the homes of Bucha's locals, line both sides of Vokzal'na street - the site of many killings and much of the fighting in the commuter town.