ODESSA, Ukraine —
Ukraine on Sunday accused
Russian troops of war crimes after the discovery of mass graves and civilians
apparently “executed” in the streets of Bucha, near the capital Kyiv.
اضافة اعلان
The claims came as explosions rocked the
Black Sea port city of Odessa, which has largely been spared in the conflict, with air
strikes apparently targeting key infrastructure.
In Bucha, AFP reporters saw at least 20 bodies, all
in civilian clothing, strewn across a single street. One had his hands tied
behind his back with a white cloth, and his Ukrainian passport left open beside
his body.
“All these people were shot,” Bucha’s mayor
Anatoly Fedoruk said, adding that 280 other bodies had been buried in mass graves
elsewhere in Bucha.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called it a
“deliberate massacre” and urged G7 countries to impose “devastating” sanctions
immediately.
“It looks exactly like war crimes,” President
Volodymyr Zelensky’s spokesman told BBC television.
“We found mass graves. We found people with their
hands and with their legs tied up... and with shots, bullet holes, in the back
of their heads.”
“They were clearly civilians and they were
executed.”
UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called for
“indiscriminate” Russian attacks in Bucha and elsewhere to “be investigated as
war crimes”.
“We will not allow Russia to cover up their
involvement in these atrocities through cynical disinformation,” she added.
In Brussels, European Council chief Charles Michel
said the
EU was helping Ukraine and NGOs gather evidence “for pursuit in
international courts”.
Germany’s vice-chancellor and economy minister
Robert Habeck said a “terrible war crime” had been carried out in Bucha and
called for fresh EU sanctions against Russia.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague has
already opened a probe into possible war crimes committed in Ukraine.
Several Western leaders, including
US President Joe Biden, have accused Russia’s Vladimir Putin of being a “war criminal”.
Human Rights Watch said it had documented cases of
Russian troops committing possible war crimes against civilians in occupied
areas of Chernigiv, Kharkiv, and
Kyiv, including rape and summary execution.
Zelensky has also alleged that
Russian soldiers
planted mines and other booby traps as they withdraw from northern Ukraine,
warning returning residents to be wary of tripwires and other dangers.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk
meanwhile said 11 local community leaders in Kyiv, Kherson, Kharkiv,
Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Donetsk were “in captivity”.
Oil refinery
In Odessa, plumes of thick
black smoke billowed over the strategic port city, after air strikes shook
residents awake at about 6am (0300 GMT).
“We were woken up by the first explosion then we saw
a flash in the sky, then another, then another. I lost count,” one local man,
Mykola, 22, told AFP from the roof of a building overlooking the site.
Russia’s defense ministry said, “high-precision sea
and air-based missiles destroyed an oil refinery and three storage facilities
for fuel and lubricants” at Odessa that were supplying fuel to
Ukrainian troops.
Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior
minister, said: “Some of the missiles were shot down by air defense.”
The strikes came as top UN humanitarian envoy Martin
Griffiths was expected in Moscow and then Kyiv to seek a halt in the fighting,
which by Ukrainian estimates has left some 20,000 people dead.
Nearly 4.2 million Ukrainians have fled the country
since Russia invaded on February 24, with almost 40,000 pouring into
neighboring countries in the last 24 hours alone, the
UN refugee agency said.
The International Organization for Migration said
nearly 6.48 million were estimated to be displaced inside Ukraine.
Pope Francis, on a visit to the Mediterranean
island of Malta on Sunday, made a plea for refugees fleeing the “sacrilegious war” in
“tormented Ukraine” to be welcomed.
Too soon
On talks to end the
fighting, Russia’s chief negotiator
Vladimir Medinsky said it was too early for
a top-level meeting between Zelensky and Putin on ending the conflict.
He said Ukraine
had become “more realistic” in its approach to issues related to the neutral
and non-nuclear status of Ukraine but a draft agreement for submission to a
summit meeting was not ready.
He said he did not share the “optimism” of Ukraine’s
negotiators on the possibility of talks between the two countries’ leaders in
Turkey.
His Ukrainian counterpart, David Arakhamia, had said
on Saturday that Moscow had “verbally” agreed to key Ukrainian proposals,
raising hopes that talks to end fighting were moving forward.
Ukraine has proposed abandoning its aspirations to
join
NATO and declaring official neutrality, if it obtains security guarantees
from Western countries. It would also pledge not to host any foreign military
bases.
It has proposed to temporarily put aside the
question of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, and two breakaway territories in
the eastern Donbas region that Russia has recognized as independent.
Medinsky said Russia’s position on Crimea and the
Donbas “remains unchanged” and that talks would resume by video conference on
Monday.
Weapons call
As Russian forces withdraw
from some northern areas,
Moscow appears to be focusing on eastern and southern
Ukraine, where it already holds vast swathes of territory.
UK Defense Intelligence said early Sunday that
Russian air activity in the last week had been concentrating on southeastern
Ukraine, “likely as a result of Russia focusing its military operations in this
area”.
But it said Russia was struggling to find and
destroy air systems, which has “significantly affected their ability to support
the advance of their ground forces”.
In his latest video message, Zelensky said Russian
troops wanted to seize the disputed
Donbas region and the south of Ukraine,
promising “to defend our freedom, our land, and our people”.
Ukraine on Saturday claimed progress against Russian
forces, saying Irpin, Bucha, Gostomel, and the whole Kyiv region had been “liberated”.
Protests
Russia’s efforts to
consolidate its hold on southern and eastern areas of Ukraine have been
hampered by the resistance of
Mariupol despite devastating attacks lasting
weeks.
At least 5,000 residents have been killed in the
besieged southern port city, according to officials, while the estimated
160,000 who remain face shortages of food, water and electricity.
The
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its
team left for Mariupol on Saturday to make another attempt at conducting an
evacuation, after being forced to turn back the day before.
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