Ukraine accused Russian forces on Sunday of perpetrating a “massacre” in the city of Bucha, while Western countries reacted to images of the bodies with calls for new sanctions against Moscow.
The Russian Ministry of Defense He denied the Ukrainian accusations, saying that the images and photographs showing the bodies in Bucha were “another provocation” by the Ukrainian government.
Bucha’s footage came after Ukraine said on Saturday that its forces had regained control of the entire Ukraine region. Kyiv and liberated cities from Russian troops.
The images sparked outrage in Ukraine and abroad, and increased pressure on the Russian president. Vladimir Putin by increasing the probability of new sanctions. Western countries have already tried to isolate Moscow economically and punish it for the invasion, which began on February 24.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview in the United States that Russian forces are committing “genocide” in Ukraine.
“This is genocide. The elimination of the entire nation and the people,” Zelensky denounced on CBS’s Face the Nation program, according to a transcript provided by the US network.
“We are citizens of Ukraine. We have more than 100 nationalities. It is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities,” stressed the president, a day after horrific images of civilian deaths were released in Bucha, a Ukrainian city recovered from the Russian forces.
“The Bucha massacre was deliberate,” Minister of Defense said on Twitter. foreign affairs ukrainian, Dmytro Kuleba.
Secretary of State for United States, Anthony Blinken, described the footage as “a punch to the guts”. The German Foreign Minister, annalena baerbocksaid that Russia must pay for “war crimes” and the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, He stated that his government will intensify the sanctions.
“Putin and his supporters will feel the consequences,” the German chancellor said. Olaf Scholzadding that Western allies would agree to more sanctions in the coming days.
The German Defense Minister, Christine Lambertsaid that the European Union must discuss the Russian gas import ban, which is a change from Berlin’s earlier resistance to the idea of an embargo on Russian energy imports.
In Russia’s first public comment on the accusations, the Moscow Ministry of Defense he described Bucha’s photos and videos as “another montage of the kyiv regime for the Western media”.
Russia has previously denied targeting civilians and rejected accusations of war crimes in what it calls a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “denazifying” Ukraine. Ukraine says it was invaded without provocation.
Reuters on Saturday saw bodies in a mass grave and still lying in the streets, while on Sunday the mayor of Bucha, Anatoly Fedorukshowed journalists two corpses with white cloth tied around their arms, one of whom appeared to have been shot in the mouth.
Oleksiy Arestovychaide to the Ukrainian president Volodymyr ZelenskyHe said that Ukrainian troops had found the bodies of women who had been raped and set on fire, as well as the bodies of local officials and children.
In Bucha, 37 kilometers northwest of central kyiv, the city’s mayor, Fedoruk, said 300 residents had been killed during a month of occupation by the Russian military.
Reuters could not immediately verify Arestovych’s and Fedoruk’s claims.
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister asked the International Criminal Court (CPI) to collect evidence of what it called Russian war crimes, while the French and British foreign ministers said their countries would support any such investigation.
However, legal experts say the prosecution of Putin or other Russian leaders would face huge obstacles and could take years.
Human Rights Watch he said he had documented “several cases of violations of the laws of war by Russian military forces” in the Ukrainian regions of Chernigov, Kharkov and kyiv.
The Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Iryna Venedyktovasaid prosecutors investigating possible war crimes committed by Russia had found 410 bodies in cities near kyiv and that 140 of them had been examined.
missile attacks
Russia has withdrawn forces that had threatened kyiv from the north, saying it intends to focus on eastern Ukraine.
On Sunday there were reports of fighting in various parts of Ukraine.
The governor of the eastern Donetsk region said shelling had continued through the night and day.
Missiles landed near the southern Ukrainian port of Odessa on Sunday, and Russia said it had destroyed an oil refinery used by the Ukrainian military.
In Odessa, the city council said “critical infrastructure facilities” were hit. No casualties were reported.
The Russian Ministry of Defense he claimed that his military’s attacks destroyed an oil refinery and three fuel storage facilities near Odessa. He said the facility was used to supply Ukrainian troops near the town of Mikolaiv.
Odessa, on the Black Sea, is the main base of the Ukrainian navy. It has been targeted by Russian forces seeking a land corridor to Transdniestria, a Russian-speaking breakaway province of Moldova that hosts Russian troops.
Dmitro Luningovernor of the central Poltava region, said the Kremenchug oil refinery, 350 kilometers northeast of Odessa, had been destroyed in another rocket attack on Saturday.
Two explosions were heard in the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border on Sunday, two witnesses told Reuters, days after Russian authorities accused Ukrainian forces of attacking a fuel tank in that city.
Evacuation and peace talks
Evacuation efforts in Mariupol and nearby Berdyansk, both on Ukraine’s southern coast, were to continue with a bus convoy being prepared with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The ICRC abandoned earlier attempts for security reasons, while Russia blamed it for the delays.
Mariupol is Russia’s main target in Ukraine’s southeastern Donbass region, and tens of thousands of civilians are trapped there with little access to food and water.
Five weeks of efforts to negotiate an end to the war have shown little sign of progress, although Russia’s chief negotiator, Vladimir MedinskyHe said the talks would resume on Monday.
Medinsky said that a draft agreement was not ready for an eventual meeting between the Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Ukrainian Zelensky.
On Saturday, the Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia he had raised hopes about negotiations with Russia, stating that enough progress had been made for direct talks between the two.
Medinsky said that although Ukraine was showing more realism by agreeing to be neutral, giving up nuclear weapons, not joining a military bloc and refusing to host military bases. He had made no progress on other key Russian demands.
“I repeat it over and over again: Russia’s position on Crimea and Donbas remains unchanged,” he said on Telegram, adding that the videoconference talks would continue on Monday.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has recognized the declarations of independence of the self-proclaimed republics of Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbass area of eastern Ukraine, which rose up against kyiv’s rule.