German Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz today assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that every effort will be made to bring the perpetrators of war crimes committed by Russia to justice.
In a statement, the deputy spokeswoman for the German Executive, Christiane Hoffmann, stressed that the federal government, together with its international partners, will do “everything in its power to ensure that crimes are relentlessly investigated and the perpetrators are identified to be held accountable before national and international courts.”
In his telephone conversation today with Zelenski, Scholz condemned the “heinous war crimes” committed by Russian troops in Bucha and elsewhere in Ukraine and expressed his solidarity with the Ukrainian population and the full support of Germany.
The German Foreign Minister was also informed about the current situation in Ukraine and the negotiation process between Kiev and Moscow, the statement added.
Scholz and Zelenski also discussed options for providing further aid to Ukraine and agreed to remain in close contact, he concludes.
” I had a telephone conversation with Olaf Scholz. We emphasized that all perpetrators of war crimes must be identified and punished. We also talked about sanctions against Russia, defense and financial support for Ukraine,” Zelenski reported on Twitter.
For his part, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba today called on scientists around the world to investigate the reasons, fueled for years, he said, that have led to the atrocities committed by Russian troops in Bucha.
“Bucha didn't happen in a day. For many years, Russian political elites and propaganda have been inciting hatred, dehumanizing Ukrainians, nurturing Russian superiority and paving the way for these atrocities. I encourage academics around the world to investigate what led to Bucha,” Kuleba writes on his Twitter account.
The Ukrainian ombudsman, Lyudmila Denisova, reported yesterday in a Facebook statement that in Bucha “people were shot point-blank” and “tortured to death not only adults, but also children”.
He added that, according to the survivors, the forces of the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadirov, installed “a real torture chamber” in his headquarters.
“According to the city authorities, there are currently a total of 360 civilians killed in Bucha, including at least ten children,” he said.
THE RESEARCH
Ukraine has opened 5,600 investigations into alleged war crimes committed on its territory since the start of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian Attorney General Irina Venediktova told British broadcaster Sky News on Sunday.
Calling Russian President Vladimir Putin “the leading war criminal of the 21st century,” the prosecutor claimed to have identified 5,600 cases of alleged war crimes and 500 Russian war criminals.
Among other cases, he spoke of the attack, attributed to a Russian missile, on the Kramatorsk railway station (east), in which 52 civilians, including five children, were killed.
“This is absolutely a war crime,” Venediktova said, claiming to have “proof” that Russia was behind the attack. “These people just wanted to save their lives, they wanted to be evacuated,” she said.
The Attorney General thanked British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who paid a surprise visit to Kiev on Saturday, during which he met with Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky and promised new weapons to Ukraine.
“What Putin did in Bucha and Irpin were war crimes that have permanently damaged his reputation,” Johnson said, referring to the two small towns near the Ukrainian capital that have become a symbol of the atrocities of the Russian invasion.
Zelenski announced last week the creation of a “special mechanism” to “investigate and prosecute all crimes of the occupiers”, adding that it would work on the basis of the “joint work of national and international experts”.
(with information from EFE and AFP)
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