Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has given a shocking testimony to Russian war crimes to the UN Security Council, urging the organization to take action to end the conflict. A meeting convened by Britain on Tuesday examined reports that Vladimir Putin’s troops had killed hundreds of civilians as they retreated from Bucha, a suburb near Kyiv. Speaking to the council, Mr Zelensky said: “There is not a single crime [Russia] will not commit there, the Russian army spilled out and deliberately shot and killed anyone who served our country. “They shot and killed women outside their homes when they were just trying to call someone who was alive. They killed entire families, adults and children and tried to burn the bodies.
Russia-Ukraine crisis: Bombing and evacuation of Kiev
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“I address you on behalf of the memory of the dead every day and the memory of the citizens who were shot and killed in the back of the head after being tortured.” Tragic images released over the weekend showed tied-up corpses shot at close range, while a mass grave full of corpses was also unearthed by Ukrainian forces who recaptured the city on Saturday. Mr Zelensky compared the actions of the Russian military to “other terrorists”. He blamed the Russian military for horrific war crimes, such as crushing civilians in their cars to death in “pleasure” tanks and raping and killing women in front of their children. Some spoke out because “the attacker did not hear what they wanted to hear from them,” Zelenski said. He said: “This is no different from other terrorists like Daesh … And here a member of the United Nations Security Council is doing it.” The Ukrainian leader told world representatives that Bucha’s horror was being repeated elsewhere in Ukraine. He warned: “The most horrific war crimes of all time, which we have seen since the end of World War II, have been committed.” “The massacre in our city of Bucha is unfortunately just one of many examples of what the invaders have been doing on our land for the last 41 days, and there are many similar cities, similar places, where the world has not yet fully learned. “True,” he said. He called on the UN Security Council, to which Russia’s veto power is a permanent member, to reform to end Russian aggression. Russia’s veto, he said, “undermines the whole architecture of world security, allows them to go unpunished and thus destroys what they can.” After his moving speech, the Ukrainian delegation showed diplomats gathered scary and graphic shots that seemed to show the consequences of Russian war crimes in Irpin, Mariupol and Bucha and other cities. Among the victims were children. Responding to the haunted scenes, British Ambassador to the UN Dam Barbara Woodward said: “I would like to thank the Ukrainian delegation for sharing this video with us. “The images are painful, speaking in my national capacity, we are shocked by what we have seen and we reiterate our solidarity with Ukraine.”
