KRAMATORSK, Ukraine —
US President Joe Biden
accused Vladimir Putin of committing genocide against civilians in Ukraine, as
Kyiv halted humanitarian corridors in several parts of the country Wednesday
deemed “too dangerous” for evacuations.
اضافة اعلان
Biden’s
accusation came as Moscow — already accused by the West of widespread
atrocities against civilians — appears to be readying a massive offensive
across Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region that Washington warned might involve
chemical weapons.
In Mariupol, where strikes continued to pummel the
battered city, more than 1,000
Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered, Russia’s
defense ministry said Wednesday. Ukraine did not confirm the claim.
Following its pullback from areas north of Ukraine’s
capital,
Kyiv, Russia is refocusing its efforts eastward, the new frontline of
the nearly seven-week war.
It appears aimed at capturing more territory in
Donbas, where Russian-backed separatists control the Donetsk and Lugansk
regions, to create a contiguous southern corridor to occupied Crimea.
Ukrainian authorities have been urging people to
flee west in advance of the expected Russian offensive but on Wednesday, all
humanitarian corridors were halted, Deputy Prime Minister
Iryna Vereshchuk said.
“The situation along the routes is too dangerous,”
Vereshchuk said, claiming Russian forces around Zaporizhzhia in the south were
blocking buses transporting the evacuated, while shooting at fleeing civilians
in Lugansk.
In the past 24 hours, seven civilians were killed by
Russian shelling in the northeastern
Kharkiv region, said regional governor
Oleg Synegubov on social media.
Biden’s charge of
genocide was the strongest accusation yet from Washington against Putin, yet
one that
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly leveled.
Biden previously called Putin a “war criminal”
following the discovery of hundreds of civilians killed in Bucha and
neighboring Kyiv suburbs held by Russian forces that sparked global
condemnation.
“Yes, I called it genocide,” said Biden, defending
his use of the term Tuesday during a speech, while saying he would let lawyers
decide “whether or not it qualifies” as such.
“It’s become clearer and clearer that Putin is just
trying to wipe out the idea of even being able to be a Ukrainian.”
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor
Karim Khan said Wednesday that “Ukraine is a crime scene”, speaking on a visit
to Bucha.
“We’re here because we have reasonable grounds to
believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the court are being committed.
We have to pierce the fog of war to get to the truth,” he told reporters.
Clean them out
The worst civilian toll is
feared to be in Mariupol, where Zelensky accuses Russia of killing “tens of
thousands”.
On Wednesday, the Ukrainian army said on Telegram
that air strikes continued, particularly targeting its port and the huge
Azovstal iron and steel works.
The maze-like complex has been a focus of resistance
in Mariupol, with fighters using a tunnel system below the vast industrial site
to slow Russian forces down.
“It’s a city within a city,” said
Eduard Basurin, a
representative for pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk, citing subterranean
areas that cannot be bombed from above.
“You have to go underground to clean them out, and
that will take time.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he could
not confirm allegations that Russia had used chemical weapons in the area, but
Washington had “credible information” Russia might use tear gas mixed with
chemical agents in the besieged port.
‘Devil incarnate’
On Wednesday, US private
satellite firm
Maxar Technologies published images it said showed ground forces
moving towards Russia’s border with Ukraine on Monday, likely in preparation
for an offensive.
In the eastern city of Kramatorsk, the Ukrainian
military’s main operations hub for the region, a steady stream of residents
sought once again to leave by bus and train.
The city’s train station was hit by a missile attack
on Friday that killed 57 people.
“What is happening is inhuman; (Putin) is a fascist.
I don’t know what to call him — a devil incarnate,” said Russian-born Valentina
Oleynikova, 82, fleeing the city with her husband.
Another woman, 44-year-old Nadiya Zhizhunas, bid
goodbye to her husband, holding him tightly for several minutes before boarding
a train.
“I have no idea when we will be together again,”
Zhizhunas said. “We have to survive first.”
‘No words’
In areas recently abandoned
by
Russian forces, the grim work of accounting for the civilian dead continued.
In the Kyiv commuter town of Gostomel, north of
Bucha, locals exhumed the body of Mayor Yuriy Prylypko, whom authorities said
was shot while “handing out bread to the hungry and medicine to the sick” and
hastily buried by a local priest.
Up to 400 people are unaccounted for Gostomel, said
regional prosecutor Andiy Tkach, as war crimes investigators began a probe. AFP
witnessed dozens of body bags filling a refrigerated lorry trailer, as two
others awaited more corpses.
Loading the truck, Igor Karpishen said he had never
before done such work.
“But our citizens are murdered and we must bury
every person in the right way,” said Karpishen.
“I don’t have any words to express these feelings.”
Zelensky sounded the alarm Tuesday about snowballing
allegations of rape and sexual assault by Russian forces in previously held areas,
saying hundreds of cases had been recorded, including of young children and a
baby.
Bucha Mayor
Anatoly Fedoruk said more than 400
people were found dead after Moscow’s forces withdrew, with 25 reported rapes.
Putin dismissed reports of civilian atrocities as
“fakes” Tuesday while saying the Russian offensive was proceeding according to
plan.
Meanwhile, an official in the central Ukrainian city
of Dnipro said Wednesday that the remains of more than 1,500 Russian soldiers
were being kept in its morgues.
Tycoon swap
The presidents of
Poland,
Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia headed for Kyiv in a show of support Wednesday,
a day after Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier — who has long held a
detente policy towards Moscow — said his offer to visit was rejected.
In a separate development, Zelensky offered to swap
a pro-Kremlin tycoon — arrested after escaping from house arrest — for captured
Ukrainians.
Zelensky posted a picture of a handcuffed Viktor
Medvedchuk — one of Ukraine’s richest people, who counts Putin among his
personal friends — wearing a Ukrainian army uniform.
Medvedchuk, a hugely controversial figure in
Ukraine,
was under house arrest over accusations of attempting to steal natural
resources from Russia-annexed Crimea and of revealing Ukrainian military
secrets to Moscow.
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