প্রকাশ: 04/04/2022
Bodies with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and
signs of torture lay scattered in a city on the outskirts of Kyiv after Russian
soldiers withdrew from the area. Ukrainian authorities accused the departing
forces on Sunday of committing war crimes and leaving behind a “scene from a
horror movie.”
As images of the bodies emerged from Bucha, European leaders
condemned the atrocities and called for tougher sanctions against Moscow. In a
sign of how the horrific reports shook many leaders, Germany’s defense minister
even suggested that the European Union consider banning Russian gas imports.
Ukrainian officials said the bodies of 410 civilians were
found in Kyiv-area towns that were recently retaken from Russian forces.
Associated Press journalists saw the bodies of at least 21
people in various spots around Bucha, northwest of the capital. One group of
nine, all in civilian clothes, were scattered around a site that residents said
Russian troops used as a base. They appeared to have been killed at close
range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs, one was shot in
the head, and another’s legs were bound.
Ukrainian officials laid the blame for the killings squarely
at the feet of Russian troops, with the president calling them evidence of
genocide. But Russia’s Defense Ministry rejected the accusations as
“provocation.”
The discoveries followed the Russian retreat from the area
after Moscow said it was focusing its offensive on the country’s east. Russian
troops had rolled into Bucha in the early days of the invasion and stayed up
until March 30.
One resident, who refused to give his name out of fear for
his safety, said that Russian troops went building to building and took people
out of the basements where they were hiding, checking their phones for any
evidence of anti-Russian activity before taking them away or shooting them.
Hanna Herega, another resident, said Russian troops started
shooting at a neighbor who had gone out to gather wood for heating.
“They hit him a bit above the heel, crushing the bone, and
he fell down,” Herega said. “Then they shot off his left leg completely, with
the boot. Then they shot him all over.”
The AP also saw two bodies, that of a man and a woman,
wrapped in plastic that residents said they had covered and placed in a shaft
until a proper funeral could be arranged.
“He put his hands up, and they shot him,” said the resident
who refused to be identified.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, described bodies lying in suburban streets as a “scene
from a horror movie.” He claimed some of the women had been raped before being
killed and the Russians then burned the bodies.
In a video address, Zelenskyy said Russian soldiers who
killed and tortured civilians were responsible for “concentrated evil.”
“It is time to do everything possible to make the war crimes
of the Russian military the last manifestation of such evil on earth,” he said
in remarks translated by his office.
He directed some of his remarks at the mothers of Russian
soldiers involved.
“Even if you raised looters, how did they also become
butchers?” he said. “You couldn’t overlook that they are deprived of everything
human. No soul. No heart. They killed deliberately and with pleasure.”
Zelenskyy said his government would take steps to create a
special justice mechanism to investigate every crime committed by the Russian
forces in Ukraine.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that photos
and videos of dead bodies “have been stage managed by the Kyiv regime for the
Western media.” It noted that Bucha’s mayor did not mention any abuses a day
after Russian troops left.
The ministry said “not a single civilian” in Bucha had faced
any violent action by the Russian military.
Russia asked for a meeting Monday of the U.N. Security
Council to discuss events in the city. The U.S. and Britain have recently accused
Russia of using Security Council meetings to spread disinformation.
In Motyzhyn, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Kyiv,
residents told AP on Sunday that Russian troops killed the town’s mayor, her
husband and her son and threw their bodies into a pit in a pine forest behind
houses where Russian forces had slept.
Inside the pit, AP journalists saw four bodies of people who
appeared to have been shot at close range. The mayor’s husband had his hands
behind his back, with a piece of rope nearby, and a piece of plastic wrapped
around his eyes like a blindfold.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk confirmed
that the mayor was killed while being held by Russian forces.
Some European leaders said the killings in the Kyiv area
amounted to war crimes. The U.S. has previously said that it believes Russia
has committed war crimes, and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called images
of what happened near Kyiv “a punch to the gut” on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“It is a brutality against civilians we haven’t seen in
Europe for decades,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on the same
show.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko called on nations to immediately
end Russian gas imports, saying they were funding the killings.
In a turnaround, Germany’s defense minister said that the EU
should consider doing just that. Ministers “would have to talk about halting
gas supplies from Russia,” Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said Sunday
night on German public broadcaster ARD. “Such crimes must not go unanswered.”
Russia provides 40% of Europe’s gas and 25% of its oil, and
until now many EU nations have resisted calls to scale back or fully end
reliance on Russian fossil fuels. Giving them up would mean even higher prices
at the pump and higher utility bills, potentially creating an energy crisis and
a recession.
The U.S. has previously announced a ban on Russian oil, but
it imports only a small share of Russia’s oil exports and doesn’t buy any of
its natural gas.
As Russian forces retreated from the area around the
capital, they pressed their sieges in other parts of the country. Russia has
said it is directing troops to the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, where
Russia-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years.
In that region, Mariupol, a port on the Sea of Azov that has
seen some of the war’s greatest suffering, remained cut off. About 100,000
civilians — less than a quarter of the prewar population of 430,000 — are
believed to be trapped there with little or no food, water, fuel and medicine.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said Sunday
that a team sent Saturday to help evacuate residents had yet to reach the city.
Ukrainian authorities said Russia agreed days ago to allow
safe passage from the city, but similar agreements have broken down repeatedly
under continued shelling.
The mayor of Chernihiv, which has also been cut off from
shipments of food and other supplies for weeks, said that relentless Russian
shelling has destroyed 70% of the northern city.
The Ukrainian military said early Monday that its forces had
retaken some towns in the Chernihiv region and that humanitarian aid was being
delivered. The road between Chernihiv and the capital, Kyiv, was to reopen to
some traffic later in the morning, according to the news agency RBK Ukraina.
The regional governor in Kharkiv said Sunday that Russian
artillery and tanks launched over 20 strikes on Ukraine’s second-largest city
and its outskirts in the country’s northeast over the past day.
The head of Ukraine’s delegation in talks with Russia said
Moscow’s negotiators informally agreed to most of a draft proposal discussed
during face-to-face talks in Istanbul this week, but no written confirmation
has been provided.
The Russian invasion has left thousands dead and forced more
than 4 million Ukrainians to flee their country.
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