Short News/Views from Ukraine

Russia has been accused of a “terrible war crime”, as western leaders condemned the killings of scores of unarmed civilians in Bucha and the surrounding areas of Kyiv.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the Kremlin-ordered attack on his country amounted to genocide, after local officials reported scores of civilians had been killed in the towns of Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel near the capital following the withdrawal of Russian forces.

Zelenskiy told the US television network CBS that Ukraine’s refusal to be subdued to Russia was the reason “we are being destroyed and exterminated”, describing the war as “the torture of the whole nation”.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dymtro Kuleba, said Russia was “worse than Isis”.

Reporters from Agence France-Presse saw at least 20 bodies, all in civilian clothing, strewn across a single street in the town of Bucha on Friday. One had his hands tied behind his back with a white cloth, and his Ukrainian passport left open beside his body. “All these people were shot,” Bucha’s mayor, Anatoly Fedoruk, told AFP, adding that a further 280 bodies had been buried in mass graves in the town.

“Dozens of shot civilians have been discovered in Bucha,” said the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, as he expressed shock about the “terrible and horrifying” footage. “Streets littered with bodies. Bodies buried in makeshift conditions. There is talk of women, children and the elderly among the victims,” he said.

Germany’s vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, condemned the killings of civilians in the town of Bucha as a “terrible war crime [that] cannot go unanswered” and called for a strengthening of sanctions. The country’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said the images from Bucha were “unbearable”.

“Putin’s frantic violence is wiping out innocent families and knows no bounds,” she wrote on Twitter, adding that those responsible for war crimes must be held to account.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, described the killings at Bucha as “a punch to the gut” and joined western allies in vowing to document the atrocities to hold the perpetrators to account.

The head of the European Council, Charles Michel, said he was shocked by “haunting images of atrocities committed by [the] Russian army in liberated region of Kyiv”, adding that “further EU sanctions and support are on their way”.

The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said she was “appalled by reports of unspeakable horrors in areas from which Russia is withdrawing”. An independent investigation was urgently needed, she said, and “perpetrators of war crimes will be held accountable”.

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, pledged France would work with Ukrainian authorities and the international criminal court (ICC) “to ensure these acts don’t go unpunished and that those responsible are being sent to trial and convicted.”

The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, who spoke to Zelenskiy on Saturday said the UK “will continue to step up military, economic and diplomatic support, including further ramping up sanctions to increase the economic pressure on Putin’s war machine, while Russian troops remain on Ukrainian territory”.

Kuleba urged the ICC and international organisations to come to the region to collect evidence of Russian war crimes.

Speaking on Times Radio on Sunday, he said Bucha was a “deliberate massacre”. Describing Russia as “worse than Isis”, he said Russian forces were guilty of murder, torture, rape and looting. He also urged G7 countries to impose “devastating” sanctions immediately.

from www.theguardian.com