© KEYSTONE / AP / Petros Giannakouris
Westerners called on Monday to investigate the “war crimes” attributed to Russian soldiers in the kyiv region, denied outright by Moscow but qualified as “genocide” by Ukraine.
The United Nations and several Western countries expressed their indignation following the discovery this weekend of dozens of bodies wearing civilian clothes in Boutcha, northwest of kyiv, in the streets or mass graves, following the withdrawal of Russians who are loosening the grip on the capital to concentrate on the south and east of the country.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said she was “horrified” and called “to preserve all evidence” of these “possible war crimes” and “serious violations of human rights”.
US President Joe Biden called for a “war crimes trial” on Monday and said he wanted to take “additional sanctions” once morest Russia. “He must be held to account,” he added of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, repeating that he considered him a “war criminal”.
New sanctions once morest Russia were discussed Monday within the European Union, demanded in particular by France and Germany.
The EU also announced that it had set up “a joint investigation team with Ukraine to collect evidence and investigate war crimes and crimes once morest humanity”, said the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
In particular, the EU wishes to join forces with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has been investigating since March 3 into allegations of war crimes in Ukraine.
“The perpetrators of these heinous crimes must not go unpunished,” added Ursula von der Leyen following a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The latter went to Boutcha on Monday, where he denounced the abuses of the Russian army, “war crimes” which will be “recognized as genocide”, a term also mentioned a little earlier by the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki.
Bullet in the neck
“Every day, when our fighters enter and retake territories, you see what is happening,” added Mr. Zelensky to the press, dressed in a khaki coat and a bulletproof vest, surrounded by soldiers in the streets of devastated Boutcha. According to him, “thousands of people” were “killed and tortured” by the Russians, “with extremities cut off, women raped, children killed”.
Lioudmila Denisova, in charge of human rights at the Ukrainian Parliament, also said Monday that Ukrainian soldiers captured by the Russian army and recently released had reported “inhuman treatment” suffered in captivity.
The Kremlin had reacted strongly Monday morning by rejecting “categorically all the accusations”, through the voice of its spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, who called on foreign leaders not to advance “hasty accusations” once morest Moscow. and to “at least listen to the Russian arguments”.
The Russian army had reached Boutcha and the nearby town of Irpin, which borders Kyiv to the northwest, very soon following the start of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. In the weeks that followed, the two cities were the scene of fierce fighting which partly devastated them and caused most of the inhabitants to flee.
The Ukrainians announced that they had resumed them in recent days, following the Russians indicated that they were loosening the noose on kyiv and the north to concentrate their military efforts on the east of the country.
According to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Iryna Venediktova, the remains of 410 civilians were found in Boutcha and other territories of the kyiv region recently retaken from Russian troops.
The Kremlin talks regarding staging
On Saturday, AFP had seen in Boutcha the corpses of at least 22 people wearing civilian clothes in the streets. The mayor of the city, Anatoli Fedorouk, had assured that they were killed with “a bullet in the neck”, suggesting massive summary executions on the part of Russian soldiers.
Mr. Fedorouk also claimed that “280 people” had been buried “in mass graves” because they might not be buried in communal cemeteries, all within range of Russian fire during the fighting.
“Judging by what we have seen, these video images cannot be trusted,” Peskov replied. According to the Kremlin spokesman, Russian experts have found signs of “video tampering” and “fakes” in footage presented by Ukrainian authorities as evidence of a Russian massacre.
Moscow, which denies any abuse of its own, announced Monday that it would investigate this “hateful provocation” which, according to it, aims to “discredit” Russian forces in Ukraine. And asked for a meeting of the UN Security Council to rule on these abuses committed according to her by “Ukrainian radicals” in Boutcha.
The Russian army appears to be effectively withdrawing from around kyiv and northern Ukraine, and concentrating in the south and east.
Bombings
On Sunday, it notably bombed the cities of Otchakiv and Mykolaiv, where eight people were killed and 34 injured, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said.
According to Western military experts, Russia seeks above all to control a continuous territory stretching from Crimea to the two pro-Russian breakaway republics of Donbass, Donetsk and Lugansk.
Only one city prevents it: the port city of Mariupol (south-east), which it has been pounding relentlessly for more than a month, leaving the population on its own, in terrible conditions.
Mariupol, which before the war had nearly half a million inhabitants, is “90%” destroyed and “40% of its infrastructure” is “unrecoverable”, its mayor Vadim Boïtchenko announced on Monday.
In the east, the situation is “tense” throughout the part of Donbass under Ukrainian control, where the army is ready to face Russian forces, and the civilian population must evacuate without delay, according to local authorities.
Gas and talks
Westerners now want to adopt new measures once morest Moscow, following having already acted on several sets of sanctions since February 24, massively targeting companies, banks, senior officials, oligarchs, and prohibiting the export of goods to Russia.
To adopt a new set of sanctions at European level, unanimity is necessary between the 27 of the EU.
The pressure thus bears in particular on hydrocarbons, an important financial resource for Russia.
But Germany, with Austria on its heels, warned on Monday that it might not do without Russian gas supplies “in the short term” and sanctions once morest Moscow in this sector would hurt the EU more than to Russia, through the voice of its Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner.
The United States banned the import of Russian oil and gas shortly following the invasion of Ukraine, but not the EU, which was sourcing around 40% from Russia in 2021.
Moscow is already anticipating a possible increase in sanctions. But “sooner or later we will have to establish a dialogue, whether someone across the Atlantic wants it or not,” said the Kremlin spokesman.
The intense war has caused at least thousands of deaths and forced into exile more than 4.2 million Ukrainians, 90% of them women and children.