President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech to the Security Council will be full of symbolism, but the invitation and other displays of Western support are unlikely to alter the situation on the ground. He says his forces desperately need more powerful weaponry, some of which the West has been reluctant to provide. Russia’s veto ensures that the body will not take any action, and it was unclear whether its representatives would remain on the floor for the direction of the video.
Ukrainian officials said the bodies of at least 410 civilians were found in towns around kyiv that were recaptured from Russian forces and that a “torture chamber” was discovered in the town called Bucha, from which some of the darker details.
Associated Press journalists in Bucha dozens of corpses dressed in civilian clothes have been counted. Many appeared to have been shot at close range, and some had their hands tied or their flesh burned. A mass grave in a cemetery contained bodies wrapped in plastic. Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said the bodies of five men with their hands tied were found in the basement of a children’s sanatorium where civilians were tortured and killed.
High-resolution satellite imagery from commercial provider Maxar Technologies showed that many of the bodies had been lying in the open for weeks, during the time Russian forces were in the city. The New York Times first reported the images showing the dead.
Russia has repeatedly denied the accusations, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissing the scenes outside kyiv as a “staged anti-Russian provocation”.
Russia has tried to refute similar accusations against his forces in the past by accusing his enemies of falsifying photos and videos, and using so-called crisis actors. Western officials and independent reporters say Russia spreads disinformation to mask its actions.
As Western leaders condemned the Bucha killings, Germany, France, Italy and Denmark expelled dozens of Russian diplomats on Monday and Tuesday, saying they were spies. US President Joe Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin should be tried for war crimes.
In another show of support, European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen plans to travel to kyiv to meet Zelenskyy this week. The 27-nation EU has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since the Russian invasion began on February 24, and has already passed four rounds of sanctions. a fifth round being considered this week.
But Western nations are divided on how far to go. Some are calling for a boycott of Russian oil and gas imports, while Germany and others fear such a move could sink the continent. in a serious economic crisis. And countries in the NATO alliance have refused to hand over some of the more powerful weapons Zelenskyy has asked for, such as fighter jets.
Its supply of other weapons and equipment has been credited with helping Ukraine mount a tougher-than-expected resistance to Russia’s superior firepower.
That resistance prevented Russian forces from invading the capital, and its troops are now withdrawing from areas around kyiv. About two-thirds of the Russian troops around the city have left and are in or on their way to Belarus, said a US defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an intelligence assessment.
The officer said they were probably getting more supplies and reinforcements. Other Western and Ukrainian officials have warned that many are simply regrouping. Some are already being redeployed to the east, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region since 2014.
Zelenskyy called again on Monday for more weapons to meet this upcoming offensive.
“If we had already gotten what we needed, all these planes, tanks, artillery, anti-missile and anti-ship weapons, we could have saved thousands of people,” he said.
The president’s video addresses to European capitals have become almost everyday affairs and have helped garner military, financial and diplomatic support for his country, but the speech to the Security Council could be even more dramatic, with all eyes the reaction of the Russian representatives present. .
The Ukrainian military says that, in Donbas, Russia is focused on seizing the cities of Popasna and Rubizhne in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, which has seen weeks of heavy fighting at a staggering cost to the city and its residents.
“The enemy is regrouping troops and concentrating its efforts on preparing an offensive operation in the east of our country,” he said in a statement. “The goal is to establish full control over the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” which Russia has recognized as independent.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said seven humanitarian corridors will open on Tuesday, including besieged Mariupol, where 1,500 civilians were able to escape in private vehicles on Monday, as well as Russian-controlled Berdyansk.
But it was not immediately clear whether Russia had agreed to stop the fighting along the corridors. Previous efforts to bring civilians to safety through humanitarian corridors have failed due to renewed fighting.
An international Red Cross team has given up entering Mariupol for at least Tuesday after days of trying to deliver aid to the besieged city and help escort civilians out.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said the team was held overnight by police in Manhush, west of Mariupol, but was later released. He did not identify the nationality of the police, but Manhush has been under Russian control for weeks.
This story has been updated to correct that Mariupol is on the Sea of Azov, not the Black Sea.
Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Ukraine; Edith Lederer at the United Nations; Lolita Baldor in Washington and Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report.
Reference-www.washingtonpost.com