Ukraine, which this weekend regained control of the entire Kiev region by Putin's army, discovered Russian barbarism: a “deliberate massacre” in the city of Bucha, 30 kilometers northwest of the capital and hundreds of civilian bodies killed in other recovered cities.
After the shocking find, Western countries accused Russian troops on Sunday of committing “war crimes” and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of being committing “a genocide” of civilians in their country.
This Sunday, local lifeguards found 75 bodies in a mass grave in this town. The bodies of 410 civilians were also found in other territories near Kiev that were taken up by Ukrainian troops, according to reported Ukrainian Attorney General Iryna Venediktova. On Saturday, journalists from the AFP agency had already reported the appearance of about 20 bodies scattered on a street in Bucha and the mayor of the city Anatoly Fedoruk reported that 280 bodies had been buried in mass graves.
The images went around the world and triggered a series of international condemnations, as well as calls to tighten sanctions against Moscow.
The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the European Union (EU) expressed their horror and called for those responsible to be brought before the international tribunal in The Hague.
The ICC has recently opened an investigation into possible war crimes committed in Ukraine, and some Western leaders, including US President Joe Biden, called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.”
Britain stated that it would support any investigation by the ICC. “As Russian troops are forced to withdraw, we see increasing evidence of atrocious acts by invading forces in cities like Irpin and Bucha,” Foreign Minister Liz Truss said Sunday. “Their indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians during Russia's illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine must be investigated as war crimes,” Truss said, adding that Britain “will not allow Russia to cover up its involvement in these atrocities through cynical misinformation.”
The United States and NATO were also horrified and warned that the withdrawal of Russian troops did not mean an end to the violence.
The murders of civilians in Bucha are “horrible” and “unacceptable,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, called them “a punch in the stomach.”
“I am deeply shocked by the images of civilians killed in Bucha, Ukraine,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
According to the international organization, which calls for an independent investigation and preservation of evidence, the discovery of mass graves raises serious doubts about possible war crimes. However, the UN also said that it could not be ruled out that among the bodies were those of “Ukrainian or Russian soldiers who died during the hostilities”.
Russia, on the other hand, rejected the accusations and assured that the images of murdered civilians were a fabrication of Ukraine. “During the time when this town was under the control of the Russian armed forces, not a single local resident suffered violent actions,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. They even tried to impose their own version of what happened with a video recorded from a Russian tank touring Bucha.
The images show the bodies on both sides of the road and the military account of the events is heard.
At one point, the military man says, “The corpse on the right moves his hand.” However, if the image is enlarged and viewed in slow motion, what is seen is not the right hand of the body rising, but the reflection of a light.
With this video Russia tries to install the idea that Ukraine is putting on a show, that there are no such deaths. The narrative, however, is easily detachable, prestigious international media such as the AFP agencies, Reuters and AP were there. They saw through the eyes of their photographers and journalists the lifeless bodies of all those Ukrainian civilians who did not die of natural causes, were executed in a practice prohibited by international law.
However, Western countries are calling for tightening sanctions against Moscow. “More sanctions and EU aid are on the way,” said European Council President Charles Michel on Sunday.
Bombing of a hospital
The war in Ukraine has so far left some 20,000 dead, according to the Ukrainian authorities. According to the UN, more than 4 million refugees have fled Ukraine since the invasion and in total there are more than 10 million displaced persons. And although more than 500,000 people have returned to the country since the beginning of the conflict, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior, Russian forces continue to bomb towns in the south and east of the territory.
“What we see is not a withdrawal, but we see that Russia is repositioning its troops,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Sunday.
In Rubishne, a town near Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine, one person was killed and three were injured in a Russian bombing of a hospital, regional governor Sergei Gaïdaï said on Telegram.
Further south, in Mikolaiv, a Russian bombardment left one person dead and 14 injured, according to the governor of the region Vitaliy Kim.
Located on the way to Odessa, Ukraine's main port on the Black Sea, Mikolaiv has already been the target of attacks by Russian troops in recent weeks, trying to control it.
Explosions were also heard in Odessa early this Sunday morning, according to AFP journalists. The rocket attack left no casualties, an official of the Southern Regional Command, Vladislav Nazarov, said in a statement.
Russia reported that it destroyed a refinery and fuel depots. The facility supplied fuel to Ukrainian forces in the direction of Mikolaiv, said the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow.
Odessa is considered strategic because of its large port that allows access to the Black Sea and the rest of Ukraine.
Russian efforts to consolidate its control in southern and eastern Ukraine have so far been undermined by resistance in Mariupol, despite weeks of devastating attacks. At least 5,000 people have died in the siege of that other port city in the south of the country, according to local authorities, while the 160,000 still there suffer from shortages of food, water and electricity.
War crimes
The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Sunday that “summary executions” and “other serious abuses” have been committed in areas of Ukraine under Russian control that could amount to war crimes.
The NGO claims to have documented several cases between 27 February and 14 March in which Russian forces committed what would constitute war crimes against civilians in occupied areas in the Chernigov, Kharkiv and Kiev regions.
According to a statement from the organization, such cases include rape, two summary executions, of six men on one occasion and one on another, and other instances of violence and threats against civilians.
Summary executions documented on the basis of witness interviews took place on 4 March in Bucha, north-west of the capital, and on 27 February in Staryi Bykiv, in the Chernigov region (north).
In the latter case, a neighbor from a nearby town who spoke to eyewitnesses told HRW that while people were sheltering in basements due to mortar fire and soldiers went house to house and took men supposedly for questioning.
“We found them lying with bullet holes in their heads. Their hands were tied behind their backs,” she told the organization “Viktoria”, the mother of one of the six young men executed, adding that the soldiers would not let her collect the body for several days.
In Bucha, a suburb of Kiev, a woman interviewed by HRW recalled that Russian forces gathered neighbors in the square and inspected the identity documents and mobile phones of those present, as well as asking who belonged to the territorial defense forces.
Later they brought five men and ordered them to kneel on the ground. “One of them was shot in the head,” said the woman, adding that the Russian commander told the rest of the neighbors: “We are here to clear you of this scum.”
On the other hand, a 31-year-old woman from the Kharkiv region (north-east) told the NGO that a Russian soldier repeatedly raped her in the school where she took refuge with her family, and also beat her and cut her face and neck with a knife.
“All the time he pointed his gun at my temple or in my face. Twice he shot at the roof and said it was to give me more motivation,” said the woman, identified as “Olga” who was in the school shelter with her five-year-old daughter.
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