More than 100 civilians were buried in mass graves in the Kyiv suburb after Russian forces withdrew last week, one of several areas where Ukrainian officials and independent rights watchdogs say they are uncovering evidence of war crimes by occupying forces.
After the withdrawal of Russian military forces from Bucha, near the capital, the streets were left littered with the corpses of civilians, while Human Rights Watch issued on Sunday a report documenting cases of rape and executions in the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
newspaper says The Wall Street Journal The Ukrainians “found people tied behind their backs, beheaded, and children killed and tortured.”
More killing
And on Sunday, seven people were killed and 34 others wounded in a Russian shelling of a residential neighborhood in Kharkiv, a large city in northeastern Ukraine, according to the local prosecutor.
The media office of the region’s prosecutor said that “the Russian occupiers bombed residential buildings in the Slobodsky district of Kharkiv, as a result of which 10 houses were damaged, and according to preliminary information, seven people were killed and 34 were injured, including three children.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that the Russian leadership was responsible for killing civilians in Bucha, near the capital, Kyiv, where dozens of bodies were found after Russian forces withdrew from the city.
“I want all the leaders of the Russian Federation to see how their orders, these kinds of orders are being carried out,” Zelensky stressed in a video speech, adding that “there is a joint responsibility for these killings, for this torture…for the shooting in the back of the head.”
In an interview that aired Sunday on CBS, Zelensky said, “As a father of two children and as a president, I think these people (Russian leaders), if they are put behind bars, it’s very little compared to what they did.”
On Sunday, Mayor of Bucha estimated the number of bodies buried in mass graves at 118.
On Saturday, AFP reported that the municipality put the death toll at more than 280.
“The word ‘crime’ that we’ve been hearing recently is a very mild description of what happened here,” Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said.
On Sunday, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said 410 civilian bodies had been removed from areas near Kyiv that had been recovered in recent days, and about 140 bodies had been examined by forensic experts.
Russian position
The Russian Defense Ministry dismissed the reports on Bucha, describing it as “another provocation” from the Ukrainian side.
Moscow said that no local residents suffered from violence while Bucha was under Russian control.
These reports add to the already ongoing pressure on US President Joe Biden’s administration and European allies to do more to punish Russia and increase support for Ukraine.
The killings taking place may make it difficult for some countries to justify continuing to buy oil and natural gas from Russia and complicate the peace talks currently underway between Ukraine and Russia.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has compared emerging evidence of mass killings in Buca and other areas near Kyiv that the Russian army has occupied for more than five weeks with the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which Serb forces massacred more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims.
Under international law, warring parties can be prosecuted for intentionally killing civilians and prisoners of war, destroying private property, or engaging in torture, sexual violence, pillage, or other prohibited acts.
Russian troops arrived in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv in the early days of the war, which began on February 24, in an attempt to launch a lightning attack on the Ukrainian capital.
wrecked russian tanks
After counterattacks disrupted their supply lines and threatened an encirclement, Russian forces abandoned the area as part of Moscow’s new strategy to refocus on eastern Ukraine.
On Saturday, Ukrainian soldiers raised the country’s flag again over the Bucha municipality building.
“The city is ours, but it’s still not completely safe,” Andre Ferlatti, deputy commander of the Bucha Regional Defense Brigade, was quoted as saying by the Wall Street Journal.
Broken Russian tanks and armored vehicles were scattered on the southwestern tip of Bucha.
The newspaper said that the effects of the fighting in the city are seen everywhere, on cars crushed by tanks, buildings, and even the street floors.
executions
Some residents say that Russian forces rounded up civilians, executed them, and loaded them into corpses.
Vasily Shcherbakov, a Ukrainian unit commander in Bucha, said about 20 bodies of local civilians were left near a glass factory in the city.
He added that the Russian forces prevented the townspeople from burying these bodies to rest. Then they “mined her”.
Two Ukrainian soldiers said Russian forces had told the townspeople to stay at home, fearing they would flee to Irbin, further south, across the Bucha River.
And the Wall Street Journal published several pictures of civilian bodies lying everywhere in the city.
“Valentina Ivanovna was shot near that house,” an elderly woman told the newspaper, referring to her neighbor who was executed by Russian forces.
In a recently retaken village near Kyiv, authorities found the body of Maxim Levin, a Ukrainian photojournalist who went missing while working there nearly three weeks ago.
Levin died after being shot by Russian forces, according to a statement from the Ukrainian Prosecutor General. Another photographer he was with is still missing.
In Motigin, another village near Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities said they found the bodies of the village chief, Ole Sokenko, her husband and son, who were detained by Russian forces on March 23.
This incident is one of 2,500 that Ukraine’s Prosecutor General uses to build cases against Russian authorities for possible war crimes.
The prosecutor has already identified 205 suspects, including members of the Russian military and political leadership.
war crimes
Human Rights Watch said in its report issued on Sunday that it had documented several other cases of war crimes committed by the Russian army in the occupied regions of Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Kiev between February 27 and March 14.
Among this evidence, the organization said, was evidence of the repeated rape and execution of six men, as well as the looting of civilian property, including food, clothing and firewood.
“The cases we have documented amount to deliberate cruelty and violence against Ukrainian civilians,” said Hugh Williamson, Amnesty International’s director for Europe and Central Asia, adding that these cases should be investigated as war crimes.
International parking
The killings in Bucha and other areas that were or are still under Russian occupation have sparked calls for an international investigation into war crimes into the conduct of the Russian military.
In an interview with CNN, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the images were in line with the Biden administration’s warnings that Russian forces would commit abuses.
“You can’t help but see these pictures as horrific, and look, we said before the Russian aggression that we thought they might be committing atrocities,” Blinken said. It’s the reality of what happens every day.”
“The world should know what happened in Bucha,” the US embassy in Kyiv said, adding that the US government was committed to holding those responsible “using any available tool” to account.
The images coming out of Bucha and other areas abandoned by Putin’s forces are horrific. The U.S. government is committed to pursuing accountability using every tool available. We can not stand quiet, the world needs to know what happened, and we all must act.
— U.S. Embassy Kyiv (@USEmbassyKyiv) April 3, 2022
French President Emmanuel Macron described the images as “unbearable”.
“In the streets, hundreds of civilians were killed in a cowardly way,” Macron said in a message posted on Twitter on Sunday. “The Russian authorities will have to be held accountable for these crimes.”
The images reaching us from Boutcha, a liberated town near kyiv, are unbearable. In the streets, hundreds of cowardly murdered civilians. My compassion for the victims, my solidarity with the Ukrainians. The Russian authorities will have to answer for these crimes.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) April 3, 2022
The New York Times says that the atrocities reported by the photographs may harden the world’s attitude toward Russia even more.
Germany’s Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said, in a major shift in her country’s stance, that the European Union should consider banning Russian gas imports in light of Bucha’s atrocities.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Bucha’s scenes reflected “a brutality against civilians that we have not seen in Europe for decades. It is appalling and absolutely unacceptable that civilians are targeted and killed.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “Russia’s despicable attacks against innocent civilians in Irbin and Bucha are further evidence that [الرئيس الروسي فلاديمير] Putin and his army are committing war crimes in Ukraine.”
And Irbin, another suburb of Kyiv, was also the scene of fierce battles.
Britain also called for an investigation and said it would support any investigations by the International Criminal Court.
“With Russian forces being forced to retreat, we are seeing increasing evidence of horrific acts by invading forces in towns like Irpen and Bucha,” Secretary of State Liz Truss said Sunday.
“Their indiscriminate attacks against innocent civilians during Russia’s unlawful 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 disinformation.”
We must hold to account those responsible for the appalling acts committed by Russian troops in Bucha, Irpin and elsewhere in Ukraine.
Putin’s regime will not be allowed to cover up their involvement in these atrocities.https://t.co/fB2C4jz5M9
— Liz Truss (@trussliz) April 3, 2022
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry republished a message on its Telegram channel that claimed that some footage of the bodies in Bucha was “fake” and accused Ukrainian forces of killing people by bombing Bucha.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply shocked” by the images from Bucha. It is “essential that an independent investigation leads to effective accountability,” he said.
Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevix said that Russian forces committed “genocide” and “war crimes” in Bucha “must be met with new sanctions and increased military aid to Ukraine.”
Charles Michel, President of the European Council, expressed his shock at the images and said in a tweet on Twitter that more EU sanctions against Russia were “on the way”.
Several other European officials have expressed concern about the images from Bucha.
Roberta Mezzola, president of the European Parliament, said on Twitter that the photos were a “cold fact of Putin’s war crimes”, adding that the world “should be aware of what is happening”.
Appalled by atrocities of Russian army in # bushing & other liberated areas.
This is cold reality of Putin’s war crimes.
World must be aware of what is happening. Tougher sanctions must be imposed.
Perpetrators & their commanders must be brought to justice.#StandWithUkraine️
– Roberta Metsola (@EP_President) April 3, 2022
Experts say that while war crimes cases can be brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, it will be very difficult to hold Russian leaders to account there because the court lacks enforcement powers.
Prosecution at the International Court of Justice is also possible, but any ruling must be implemented by the United Nations Security Council, where Russia has a veto.
US lawmakers said reports from Bucha justified more aid to Ukraine, with some calling for more surface-to-air missiles to help Ukrainian forces.
“We need to do more to help Ukraine, and we need to do it more quickly,” said Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio.