Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has toured the town of Bucha, near Kyiv (Kiev), where retreating Russian forces are alleged to have left murdered civilians in their wake.
“These are war crimes and will be recognised by the world as genocide,” the body armour clad Ukrainian president said at the scene, in comments reported by Reuters.
“It’s very difficult to talk when you see what they’ve done here,” he went on, suggesting the alleged war crimes could make a breakthrough in ongoing peace talks more difficult.
“The longer the Russian Federation drags out the negotiating process, the worse it is for them and for this situation and for this war,” he said, claiming that his government “know[s] of thousands of people killed and tortured, with severed limbs, raped women and murdered children.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (C) walks in the town of Bucha, north-west of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, on April 4th, 2022. Zelensky said on April 3rd, 2022 that the Russian leadership was responsible for civilian killings in Bucha, outside Kyiv, where bodies were found lying in the street after the town was retaken by the Ukrainian army. (Photo by RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)
The alleged killings saw Zelensky increase his rhetoric against NATO and European Union members which Ukraine sees as having adopted a slack or permissive attitude towards Russian aggression in recent years, with Germany’s former four-time chancellor Angela Merkel and her erstwhile French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy.
“I invite Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy to visit Bucha and see what the policy of concessions to Russia has led to in 14 years. To see with their own eyes the tortured Ukrainian men and women,” he said in an official address prior to his visit.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky walks in the town of Bucha, north-west of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, on April 4th, 2022. (Photo by RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)President Zelensky was already displaying certain resentment towards Western European countries which did not seem serious about deterring the Kremlin from aggressive action in Ukraine in 2021, before the full-scale invasion but at a time when a proxy war between Kyiv and Russia-backed eastern separatists in the Donbas had already been raging since 2014.
He suggested last April that “serious, powerful players” be introduced into the long-running peace talks to end the Donbas conflict — obviously unsuccessful — mediated by France and Berlin, in what was interpreted as a vote of no confidence in Paris and Berlin.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (3rdL) stands in the town of Bucha, north-west of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, on April 4th, 2022. (Photo by RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)
Russia, which previously accused Zelensky of having fled the Kyiv region first for Lviv (Lvov/Lwów) in western Ukraine and then neighbouring Poland, has for its part insisted that the images coming out of Bucha show a “fake attack” that was “staged” after Russian forces had already left the area.
“We have requested an emergency meeting of the [United Nations] Security Council on this concrete matter, because we think that such provocations pose direct threat to international peace and security,” Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.
The Russians claim that such a meeting on “the terrible Ukrainian provocation in Bucha” is yet to take place because Britain, which currently chairs the Security Council, has refused to assent to one multiple times.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (C) stands in the town of Bucha, north-west of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, on April 4th, 2022. (Photo by RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)
“Britain, acting in accordance with its worst traditions, once again refused to give consent to holding a Security Council meeting on Bucha,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed on Monday.
“Today, Russia will demand once again the UN Security Council meet in session to discuss criminal provocations by the Ukrainian military and radicals in that city,” she added.
“We are shocked at the scale and brutality of the staging organized in Bucha in the best traditions of ‘White Helmet cinema,'” Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, has said, alluding to a Syrian group Russia accuses of staging false-flag atrocities.
“Today’s Ukrainian neo-Nazis are completely faithful to Goebbels’ old Nazi school of provocations and are trying to shift the blame to Russia,” he added, claiming that footage of the alleged war crimes have been “refuted on the Internet.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky (2nd L) walks in the town of Bucha, just north-west of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on April 4th, 2022. (Photo by RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)