A soldier next to a destroyed Russian tank during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Bucha
Bucha, Ukraine:
Ukraine’s foreign minister on Sunday accused Russian forces of carrying out a “massacre” in the town of Bucha, while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described images of corpses there as “a punch to the gut”.
Russia’s Defense Ministry denied Ukraine’s accusations, saying the videos and photos of the dead body in Bucha were “another act of provocation” by Kyiv.
After Ukraine said on Saturday its forces had regained control of the entire Kyiv region, images of corpses dressed in civilian clothes left behind after the departure of Russian troops prompted officials to Ukraine and Europe call for tougher sanctions against Russia.
Outrage in Ukraine and abroad adds to the pressure on Russian President Putin as it increases the likelihood of further Western sanctions. Western nations have dealt a profound economic blow to Russia as they seek to punish Moscow for the invasion, which began on 24 February.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said: “We are still collecting and searching for bodies, but the number is already in the hundreds.
“Deads are lying in the streets. They kill civilians while there and when they leave these villages and towns,” Kuleba said.
He called on the G7 countries to impose “cruel” new sanctions on Moscow and urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to gather evidence of what he called Russia’s war crimes.
In Russia’s first public comment on the allegations, the Defense Ministry in Moscow described the photos and videos from Bucha as “another staged display of the Kyiv regime for the Western media.” .
“During the time the Russian armed forces controlled this settlement, not a single local resident was subjected to any acts of violence,” the newspaper said.
Russia has previously denied targeting civilians and denied accusations of war crimes in what it calls “special military operations” aimed at demilitarization and “denuclearization”. “Ukraine.
On Saturday, Reuters saw bodies in a mass grave and still lying on the street, while on Sunday the mayor of Bacha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, showed reporters two bodies with white cloths tied. around his hand, one of which appeared to have been shot in the mouth.
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain and the European Union’s foreign policy chief were among those expressing outrage at the reports from Bucha. France’s Jean-Yves Le Drian and Britain’s Liz Truss both said their countries would support any ICC war crimes investigation.
REPORT OF JOINT STOCK COMPANY
Oleksiy Arestovych, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the Ukrainian military had found the bodies of women who had been raped and disposed of, as well as the bodies of local officials and children.
In Bucha, 37 kilometers (23 miles) northwest of Kyiv city center, the town’s mayor Fedoruk said 300 residents had been killed during the month-long Russian military occupation.
Reuters could not immediately verify Arestovych and Fedoruk’s allegations.
“We can’t help but view these images as a punch to the gut, adding that accountability is required,” Blinken told CNN.
Blinken said: “We cannot become numb to this. We cannot normalize this. This is the reality of what is happening every day as long as Russia’s brutality against Ukraine continues. to act”.
Russia has withdrawn forces that once threatened Kyiv from the north, saying it intends to focus on eastern Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking to CNN on Sunday, said the withdrawal was not an actual withdrawal but a possible repositioning after further attacks.
BATTLE IN MULTIPLE AREAS
Fighting was reported on Sunday in several parts of Ukraine.
The governor of the eastern region of Donetsk said shelling continued throughout the night and day.
Missiles struck near the southern port of Odesa, Russia said it destroyed an oil refinery used by the Ukrainian military. Odesa City Council said “critical infrastructure” had been affected.
Dmytro Lunin, governor of the central Poltava region, said the Kremenchug oil refinery, 350 kilometers (220 miles) northeast of Odesa, was destroyed in a separate missile attack on Saturday.
Two witnesses told Reuters on Sunday they heard two explosions in the Russian city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine, days after Russian authorities accused Ukrainian forces of attacking a fuel depot there.
Evacuation efforts in the southeastern port of Mariupol and nearby Berdyansk continued with a convoy of buses prepared with the help of the Red Cross.
The ICRC abandoned previous efforts due to security concerns. Russia has blamed the ICRC for the delay.
Mariupol is Russia’s main target in Ukraine’s southeast Donbas region, and tens of thousands of civilians there have been stranded for weeks without access to food and water.
There is little sign of a breakthrough in efforts to negotiate an end to the five-week war, although Russia’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said talks would resume on Monday through via teleconference.
Medinsky said that although Ukraine is showing more realism by agreeing to neutrality, giving up nuclear weapons, not joining a military bloc and refusing to build military bases, there is no progress developments to other important Russian requirements.
“I repeat again and again: Russia’s position on Crimea and Donbas remains unchanged,” he said on Telegram.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has recognized the independence claims of the self-proclaimed republics of Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which have rebelled against Kyiv rule.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
