Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeausaid on Sunday that the Russian president Vladimir Putin is responsible for “war crimes”, during a visit to Ukraine in which he met with President Volodimir Zelensky.
“It is clear that Vladimir Putin is responsible for heinous war crimes,” Trudeau said at a press conference with the Ukrainian leader, assuring that “there must be accountability” and that he himself was “direct witness to the brutality of the Russia’s illegal war”.
Trudeau visited this Sunday the city of Irpin, near Kyivdevastated by fighting and occupied by the Russians in March, the city’s mayor announced.
“He came to Irpin to see with his own eyes all the horrors that the Russian occupiers did to our city,” Oleksander Markushin wrote on Telegram, accompanying his message with photos of Trudeau in the destroyed city.
the visit of Trudeau to Ukraine had not been announced.
“The Prime Minister is in Ukraine to meet with President Zelensky and reaffirm our unwavering support for the Ukrainian people,” his office said.
Markushin said he “sincerely thanked” the prime minister for “the support of Canada to Ukraine today”.
“We believe in the continuity of cooperation between our countries in the reconstruction of Ukrainian cities after our victory,” he said.
Irpin, on the northwestern outskirts of kyiv, was the scene of heavy fighting between Russians and Ukrainians in the first days of the Russian invasion in late February.
Photo: Reuters
The Russian army quickly took control of the city, which had a population of 60,000 before the war, and occupied it for the entire month of March.
Since then, kyiv has accused Russian forces of carrying out massacres there — as in the neighboring city of Bucha — after dozens of bodies in civilian clothes were found in these towns, occupied and then abandoned by the Russian army.
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