Ukraine War: Bodies were collected off the streets of Ukraine’s Bucha following the civilian killings.
Kyiv:
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will address the UN Security Council today, where he is expected to demand tough new sanctions on Moscow over killings in the Ukrainian town of Bucha that he has called “genocide”.
The recent discovery of bodies scattered on the streets of the town after the withdrawal of Russian forces has sparked global outrage.
In response, US President Joe Biden on Monday called for a war crimes trial and more sanctions on Russia. The EU said it is ready to send a team of investigators to gather evidence of possible war crimes after the mass graves were discovered close to the the Ukrainian capital.
The Kremlin denies Russian forces killed civilians, claiming that the images of dead bodies in Bucha are “fakes” produced by “Ukrainian radicals.”
Ten civilians were also killed while 46 were wounded in a Russian bombardment of the Ukrainian town Mykolaiv on Monday. In a jarring discovery, Ukrainian authorities also found the bodies of five civilians with their hands tied in a village west of Kyiv, including those of that town’s mayor, her husband and son.
Here are the LIVE updates on the Russia-Ukraine War:
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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will travel “this week” to Kyiv, accompanied by EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell, her spokesman said on Tuesday.
The pair, two of the European Union’s most senior figures, “will travel to Kyiv this week to meet with President (Volodymyr) Zelensky ahead of the #StandUpForUkraine event in Warsaw on Saturday,” commission spokesman Eric Mamer said in a tweet.
Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said Tuesday that Rome has expelled 30 Russian diplomats as part of a joint European action after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We have expelled 30 Russian diplomats for national security reasons,” Di Miao told Italy’s Rai television in Berlin, in news confirmed by the ministry in Rome.
Russian communications regulator Roskomnadzor said on Tuesday it wanted Wikipedia to remove “material with inaccurate information of public interest” about the situation in Ukraine.
The regulator accused Wikipedia of hosting false information on what Russia calls its “special operation” in Ukraine and on the actions of Russia’s military too.
According to Russian law, the owner of an Internet resource that does not delete illegal information when asked to do so by Roskomnadzor can be fined up to 4 million roubles ($48,120.30), the regulator said.
Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, a move that has been met with fierce Ukrainian resistance and Western sanctions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday said Ukraine’s efforts to push back Russian troops from Mariupol were facing difficulties.
In a televised interview with local media, Zelenskiy said the military situation in the southern port city was “very difficult.”
He also said Turkey had proposed a plan to help evacuate wounded people and dead bodies from the city, but cautioned that the initiative depended on the will of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The mayor of Kyiv asked European politicians to cut off all commercial ties with Moscow, saying all payments it gave to Russia was “bloody money” and fuelling its army.
“Every Euro, every cent that you receive from Russia or that you send to Russia has blood, it is bloody money and the blood of this money is Ukrainian blood, the blood of Ukrainian people,” Vitali Klitschko said via video link to a mayors’ conference in Geneva.
In the same speech, he described the “genocide of Ukrainians” following a visit to Kyiv’s satellite towns like Bucha this week. He described seeing dead civilians, including an old woman, and a car with a white flag and the letters “children” on the outside that was shot up and had blood inside.
The eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk was hit by Russian strikes early Tuesday, after Moscow’s forces said they were shifting their military aims to target the east of the country
Kramatorsk has largely been spared destruction witnessed by other east Ukraine cities, like the country’s second-largest settlement Kharkiv, since Russia invaded last month.
An AFP journalist in the city said one of the strikes at around 3:00 am local time (0000 GMT) had destroyed a school in the centre, located near a police station.
The strikes left a large smouldering crater about 10 metres wide next to the damaged school building, the journalist said, and many windows of the building were blown out in the attack.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will address the UN Security Council on Tuesday, where he is expected to demand tough new sanctions on Moscow over killings in the town of Bucha that he has called “war crimes” and “genocide”.
The speech, Zelensky’s first to the body since Russia’s invasion, comes after he made an emotional trip to Bucha, where dozens of bodies were discovered after the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Horrific images of corpses lying in the streets, some with their hands bound behind them, have drawn international condemnation of Russia.
Moscow has denied responsibility and suggested the images are fake or that the deaths occurred after Russian forces pulled out of the area.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday holding negotiations with Russia was the only option for his country although the possibility of having talks was now a “challenge”.
But in comments broadcast on national television, he said it was possible that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin would not personally hold talks.
One of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin’s closest allies said on Tuesday that claims that Russian forces executed civilians in Bucha were fake products of Ukrainian and Western propaganda aimed at discrediting Russia.
“These are fakes that matured in the cynical imagination of Ukrainian propaganda,” Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said.
“They were concocted for vast amounts of money,” Medevedev said.
A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been released after being stopped during an attempt to reach the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol and held in nearby Manhush, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
“After negotiations, they were released during the night and sent to Zaporizhzhia,” said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister
Iryna Vereshchuk, referring to a nearby city.
Russia’s top lawmaker said on Tuesday that civilian killings in the Ukrainian town of Bucha were part of a deceitful attempt by the West to discredit Russia.
“The situation in Bucha is a provocation aimed at discrediting Russia,” Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, said.
“Washington and Brussels are the screenwriters and directors and Kyiv are the actors,” Volodin said. “There are no facts – just lies.”
Since Russian troops withdrew from towns and villages around the Ukrainian capital Kyiv last week, Ukrainian troops have been showing journalists corpses of what they say are civilians killed by Russian forces, destroyed houses and burnt-out cars. Russia denies all the claims.
Ukrainian forces have retaken key northern terrain, forcing Russian forces to retreat from areas around the city of Chernihiv and north of the capital Kyiv, British military intelligence said on Tuesday.
Low-level fighting is likely to continue in some of the recaptured areas, but reduce this week as the remainder of the Russian forces withdraw, the defence ministry said in a regular bulletin on Twitter.
Many of the withdrawing Russian units are likely to require significant re-equipping and refurbishment before they redeploy for operations in the country’s east, the ministry added.
The Japanese government flew 20 Ukrainian refugees into Tokyo on Tuesday in a high-profile show of support for the international effort to help Ukraine by a country that has long been reluctant to take in foreigners.
The 20 – aged from 6 and 66 and including 15 women – are not the first Ukrainian refugees to arrive in Japan since Russia invaded their homeland on Feb. 24 – but they are the first to be flown in on a special government plane on a trip arranged by Japan’s foreign minister.
“The government of Japan is committed to provide the maximum support to these 20 Ukrainians to help them live with a sense of peace in Japan, even though they are far away from their home county,” Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters in Poland shortly before he and the refugees set off for Japan.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, in a phone call on Monday, with Beijing again calling on talks to end the conflict in Ukraine.
The call, which Beijing said was made at Ukraine’s request, was the first reported high-level conversation between the countries since March 1, when Kuleba asked Beijing to use its ties with Moscow to stop Russia’s invasion, the Ukrainian foreign ministry said at the time.
“Wars end eventually. The key is how to reflect on the pain, to maintain lasting security in Europe and establish a balanced, effective and sustainable European security mechanism,” Wang said, according to the ministry.
“China stands ready to play a constructive role in this regard in an objective position.”
Oil prices extended gains Tuesday on the prospect of further sanctions on Russia for alleged “atrocities” in some occupied Ukraine cities, while equities struggled to build on a rally in New York and Europe.
European Union officials were discussing new measures against Moscow after reports — denied by the Kremlin — that troops had executed civilians.
Among the punishments could be a ban on imports of Russian crude, following a similar move by the United States and Britain.
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan also signalled more US sanctions were on the way this week.
Russia will respond proportionately to the expulsion of its diplomats from a number of Western countries, Russian ex-president and deputy head of security council Dmitry Medvedev said late on Monday.
“Everyone knows the answer: it will be symmetrical and destructive for bilateral relations,” Medvedev said in a posting on his Telegram channel.
“Who have they punished? First of all, themselves.”
On Monday, France said it would expel 35 Russian diplomats over Moscow’s actions in Ukraine and Germany declared “significant number” of Russian diplomats as undesirable,.
The United States and Europe were planning new sanctions on Tuesday to punish Moscow over civilian killings in Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned more deaths were likely to be uncovered in areas seized from Russian invaders.
Russian forces withdrew from towns north of the capital Kyiv last week as it turns its assault to Ukraine’s south and east. Ukrainian troops recaptured towns devastated by nearly six weeks of war, including Bucha, where dead civilians lined the streets.
Searing images of a mass grave in Bucha and the bound bodies of people shot at close range drew an international outcry on Monday. U.S. President Joe Biden called for a war crimes trial against Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, with Washington, Germany and France promising new sanctions against Moscow.
Russia denied any accusations related to the murder of civilians and said it would present “empirical evidence” to a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday proving its forces were not involved.