Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russians of atrocities in Ukraine and told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that those responsible should be brought to justice for a war crimes case like the one in Nuremberg after World War II.
Zelensky, who appeared on video from Ukraine, said civilians were tortured, shot in the back of the head, thrown into wells, grenades blown up in their apartments and crushed to death by tanks while in cars.
“They cut limbs, cut their throats. Women were raped and killed in front of their children. Their tongues were pulled out only because their attacker did not hear what they wanted to hear from them,” he said, citing what he described as the worst atrocities by him. World War II.
In recent days, gruesome images of massacres of civilians by Russian forces in Bucha before being withdrawn from the outskirts of Kiev have sparked worldwide outcry and led to the deportation of dozens of Moscow diplomats and the imposition of further sanctions. Russia.
Zelensky said both those who committed the killings and those who gave the orders “should be brought to justice immediately for war crimes” before a tribunal similar to that used in post-war Germany.
Moscow’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said that while Bucha was under Russian control, “not a single local has suffered from any violent action.”  Echoing what the Kremlin has been saying for days, he said the video of corpses in the streets was “a gross forgery” directed by Ukrainians.
“You only saw what they showed you,” he said.  “The only ones who would fall into this are Western amateurs.”
Associated Press reporters in Buha counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes and interviewed Ukrainians who said they had witnessed atrocities.  Also, high-resolution satellite images from Maxar Technologies showed that many of the bodies had been in the countryside for weeks, during which Russian forces were in the city.
Zelensky stressed that Bucha was just one place and that there are more with similar horror – a warning echoed by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
“Whenever they withdraw their troops and the Ukrainian troops take over, I’m afraid they will see more mass graves, more atrocities and more examples of war crimes,” he said.
Stoltenberg, meanwhile, warned that as he left the capital, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army was reorganizing its forces to deploy them to eastern and southern Ukraine for a “critical phase of the war.”  Russia’s stated goal is to take control of Donbas, a predominantly Russian-speaking industrial area to the east that includes the shattered port city of Mariupol.
“Moscow is not abandoning its ambitions in Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said.
While representatives of both Ukraine and Russia sent optimistic messages after the last round of talks a week ago, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would not accept Ukraine’s demand that a future peace agreement be reached immediately. followed by a Ukrainian referendum on the agreement.
In televised statements Tuesday, Lavrov said a new deal would have to be negotiated if the vote failed and “we do not want to play cat-and-mouse like that.”
Ukrainian officials say the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in Russian-occupied cities around Kyiv and that a “torture chamber” has been discovered in Bucha.
Zelensky told the Security Council that “there is not a single crime” committed by Russian troops in Bhutan and likened their actions to those of the Islamic State.
“The Russian army deliberately searched and killed anyone who served our country.  They shot and killed women outside their homes when they simply tried to call someone alive.  “They killed entire families, adults and children and tried to burn the bodies,” he said.  They used tanks to crush civilians “just for their pleasure,” he said.
On Tuesday, police and other investigators walked through the silent streets of Bouha, taking notes of corpses shown to them by residents.  Survivors who hid in their homes during the monthly Russian occupation of the city, many of them middle-aged, wandered in front of charred tanks and jagged windows with plastic bags of food and other humanitarian aid.  Red Cross workers checked in intact houses.
Many of the dead seen by AP reporters appeared to have been shot at close range, and some had their hands tied or their flesh burned.
The AP and PBS ‘Frontline series have jointly confirmed at least 90 wartime incidents that appear to be in violation of international law.  The War Crimes Watch Ukraine project looks at obvious targeted as well as indiscriminate attacks.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the images from Bucha revealed “not the accidental act of a rogue unit” but “a deliberate campaign to kill, torture, rape and commit atrocities.”  He said reports of atrocities were “more than credible”.
“Only non-humans are capable of this,” said Angelica Chernomor, a refugee from Kyiv who went to Poland with her two children and saw the photos from Bucha.  “Even if people live under a totalitarian regime, they should maintain emotions, dignity, but they do not.”
Chernomor is among the 4 million Ukrainians who have fled the country since the February 24 invasion.
Russia has denied similar allegations of atrocities in the past, accusing its enemies of falsifying photos and videos and using so-called crisis agents.
As Western leaders condemned the killings in Bucha, Romania, Italy, Spain and Denmark expelled dozens of Russian diplomats on Tuesday, following moves by Germany and France.  Hundreds of Russian diplomats have been sent to their homes since the invasion began, many accused of being spies.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peshkov described the deportations as a “short-sighted” measure that would complicate communication and warned that they would be met with “reciprocal steps”.
The United States, in coordination with the European Union and the Group of Seven, will impose more sanctions on Russia on Wednesday, including a ban on all new investment in the country, a senior government official said on condition of anonymity. .  .
The EU executive also proposed a ban on coal imports from Russia, in what would be the first time the 27-nation bloc has imposed sanctions on the country’s lucrative energy industry over the war.  Coal imports are estimated at € 4 billion ($ 4.4 billion) per year.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has denounced Moscow’s “heinous crimes” around Kyiv.
Hours before the latest proposal was announced, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said that in order to prevent the “new Bukha”, the West must impose the “mother of all sanctions” – on Russian oil and gas.
“A few months of tightening your belts is worth thousands of lives saved,” he said.
But Western nations are divided over how far they should go.  While some are calling for a boycott of Russian oil and gas, Germany and others fear such a move could plunge the continent into a severe economic crisis.
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Lederer reported from the United Nations.  Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Ukraine, and Associated Press reporters around the world contributed to this report.
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Correction:

This story has been updated to correct that Mariupol is located in the Sea of ​​Azov and not in the Black Sea.