Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that the Russian military should be brought to justice immediately for war crimes, blaming Kremlin troops for the worst atrocities since World War II. The Ukrainian leader made his appeal via video as horrific evidence of Russian civilian massacres continued on the outskirts of Kiev before being withdrawn from the capital. The images, especially from the city of Bucha, have sparked global outrage and led to calls for tougher sanctions and war crimes charges. Making his first appearance before the UN supreme body, Zelensky said Russian troops were no different from other terrorists such as the Islamic State. He showed the council a short video of bloodied corpses ending with the words “Stop the Russian attack.” He stressed that Bucha was just one place and that there were more with similar horror, and called for a court similar to the one set up in Nuremberg to try war criminals after World War II. The horrific scenes of abused and burnt bodies and evidence that some of the dead were tied up and shot in the head led Western nations to deport dozens more Moscow diplomats and propose further sanctions, including a ban on imports. The NATO chief, meanwhile, warned that Russia was reorganizing its forces to deploy them to eastern and southern Ukraine for a “critical phase of the war” and said more atrocities could come to light as Russian troops continued to retreat To the North. “Whenever they withdraw their troops and take over the Ukrainian troops, I’m afraid they will see more mass graves, more atrocities and more examples of war crimes,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. 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 Bukha. “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. The police and other researchers walked on the silent streets of Bouhaha on Tuesday, keeping notes for corpses that the inhabitants showed them. 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. Associated Press reporters in the city have counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes. Many appeared to have been shot at close range, and some had their hands tied or their flesh burned. A mass grave in a church held corpses wrapped in plastic. The Kremlin denounced the images as fake and suggested that the scenes were made by Ukrainians. However, high-resolution satellite images from Maxar Technologies showed that many of the bodies had been in the countryside for weeks, during the period when Russian forces were in the city. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the images from Bucha revealed “a deliberate campaign to kill, torture, rape and commit atrocities.” He said reports of atrocities were “more than credible” and that the United States and other countries would seek to hold those responsible accountable. “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 in a statement issued Friday stating “Similar, baseless allegations concerning Russia’s nuclear program have been made more than once. As Western leaders condemned the Bucharest killings, 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”. In another show of support, the European Union’s executive branch has proposed banning coal imports from Russia, the first bloc sanctions to target the country’s lucrative energy industry over the war. These coal imports are estimated at € 4 billion ($ 4.4 billion) per year. European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has denounced Moscow’s “heinous crimes” around Kyiv. The 27-nation EU has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24 and has already launched four rounds of sanctions – but Ukrainian officials have begged for more. 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. Some are calling for a boycott of Russian oil and gas imports, while Germany and others fear such a move could plunge the continent into a severe economic crisis. Western weapons have allowed Ukraine to develop a tougher-than-expected resistance to Russia’s overwhelming firepower. This resistance prevented Russian forces from capturing the capital and other cities, and many troops have now withdrawn from areas around Kyiv. However, Western and Ukrainian officials say Russia is simply regrouping for another attack. “Moscow is not abandoning its ambitions in Ukraine,” said Stoltenberg of NATO. “We expect a further impetus in eastern and southern Ukraine to try to occupy the whole of Donbas and build a land bridge” on the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. Russian-backed separatists in Donbas are fighting the Ukrainians troops for the last eight years.
