KYIV — Ukrainian police on Saturday reported finding
three bodies with their hands tied behind their backs as Russia continued
shelling the east and Washington slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
“depravity”.
اضافة اعلان
The bodies were found on Friday in a pit near Bucha,
a town close to Kyiv that has become synonymous with allegations of Russian war
crimes.
“The victims’ hands were tied, cloths were covering
their eyes and some were gagged. There are traces of torture on the corpses,
the Kyiv region police said in a statement on Saturday.
All three men had been shot in the ear, it said.
Ukraine also reported that Russian shelling on
Kharkiv, the country’s second-biggest city, and in the eastern Donbas region
had killed one person and injured 12 more.
“The situation in the Kharkiv region is tough. But
our military, our intelligence, have important tactical success,” Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his latest televised address.
Ukrainian forces said they had recaptured the
village of Ruska Lozova, near Kharkiv, that had been occupied by Russian troops
for two months.
Hundreds of civilians were evacuated from the area.
Putin’s ‘depravity’
Thousands have been killed and millions forced to
flee their homes since the Russian invasion of its pro-Western neighbor began
on February 24.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on Friday briefly
choked with emotion as he described the destruction in Ukraine and slammed
Putin’s “depravity”.
Ukrainian prosecutors say they have pinpointed more
than 8,000 war crimes carried out by Russian troops and are investigating 10
Russian soldiers for suspected atrocities in Bucha.
Russia is now intensifying operations in the eastern
Donbas region, making some territorial advances, and tightening its
stranglehold on the devastated southern port city of Mariupol.
Ukrainian authorities said they planned to evacuate
civilians on Friday from the besieged Azovstal steel plant, the last holdout in
Mariupol where hundreds are sheltering with Ukrainian troops.
But Denis Pushilin, leader of the breakaway eastern
region of Donetsk, accused Ukrainian forces of “acting like outright
terrorists” and holding civilians hostage in the steel plant.
From Mariupol’s
badly damaged port zone, AFP on Friday heard heavy shelling coming from
Azovstal during a media trip organized by the Russian army, with explosions
only a few seconds apart.
Russia also on Friday confirmed that it carried out
an airstrike on Kyiv in which a journalist was killed during a visit by UN
chief Antonio Guterres the previous day, the first such attack on the Ukrainian
capital in nearly two weeks.
Russia’s defense ministry said it had deployed
“high-precision, long-range air-based weapons” that “destroyed the production
buildings of the Artyom missile and space enterprise in Kyiv”.
Zelensky called for a stronger global response to
Thursday’s strikes, which immediately followed his talks in the city with the
UN’s secretary-general
Guterres had also toured Bucha and other Kyiv
suburbs where Moscow is alleged to have committed war crimes. Russia denies
killing civilians.
‘Minor’ advances
Kyiv has admitted that
Russian forces have captured a string of villages in the Donbas region.
But a senior NATO official said Russia had made only
“minor” and “uneven” advances.
The Pentagon also said the Kremlin’s eastern
offensive was “behind schedule”.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that
the “special military operation ... is proceeding strictly according to plan”,
China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.
More Western armaments are due to arrive in Ukraine,
with US President Joe Biden on Thursday seeking billions of dollars from
Congress to boost supplies.
Following a conversation with Zelensky, President
Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that France would “intensify” its supply of
military and humanitarian support.
Russia’s defense ministry in recent days has said
its forces have struck Ukrainian military sites hosting Western-supplied
weapons and ammunition, a claim denied by a senior NATO official.
Russia has warned Western countries against sending
military aid.
“If the US and NATO are really interested in resolving the
Ukraine crisis, then first of all, they should wake up and stop supplying the
Kyiv regime with arms and ammunition,” Lavrov said.
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