Bucha (Ukraine): Russia faced a fresh wave of condemnation Monday after evidence emerged of what appeared to be deliberate killings of civilians in Ukraine. Some Western leaders called for further sanctions in response, even as Moscow continued to press its offensive in the east of Ukraine. However, western allies, united in outrage, appeared split on how to respond.
Poland, which is on Ukraine’s border and has taken in large numbers of refugees, angrily singled out France and Germany for not taking more strident action. It urged Europe to quickly wean itself off Russian energy, while Berlin said it would take a longer-term approach.
Ukrainian officials said the bodies of 410 civilians were found in towns around capital Kyiv that were recaptured from Russian forces in recent days. In this town, northwest of the capital, journalists saw 21 bodies.
One group of nine bodies, all in civilian clothes, were scattered around a site that residents said Russian troops used as a base. They appeared to have been shot at close range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs.
In Motyzhyn, to the west of Kyiv, journalists saw the bodies of four people who appeared to have been shot at close range and thrown into a pit. Residents said the mayor, her son, and her husband — who had been bound and blindfolded — were among them.
“This is genocide, this is fascism. This is the extermination of people, innocent people, children, women, and the elderly,” said Olena Kolesnik, who fled Kharkiv for Poland. She described her hometown in Ukraine’s north as being in a state of ruin after weeks of shelling.
The images of battered corpses lying in the streets or hastily dug graves unleashed a wave of outrage that could signal a turning point in the nearly six-week-old war.
Sanctions have, however, failed to halt the Russian offensive thus far. Rising energy prices along with tight controls on the Russian currency market have blunted their impact, with the ruble rebounding strongly after initially crashing.
Western and Ukrainian leaders have accused Russia of war crimes before, and the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor has opened a probe to investigate the conflict, but the latest reports ratcheted up the condemnation even further, with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and some Western leaders going so far as to accuse Russia of genocide.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rejected the allegations. He described the scenes outside Kyiv as a ‘stage-managed anti-Russian provocation’. Lavrov said the mayor of Bucha made no mention of atrocities a day after Russian troops left last week, but two days later scores of bodies were photographed scattered in the streets.
Russia, Lavrov said, was pushing for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the matter, but the UK, which currently chairs the body, had refused to convene it.
European leaders, meanwhile, left no doubt about who they thought was behind the killings. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said ‘the Russian authorities are responsible for these atrocities, committed while they had effective control of the area’.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that there was ‘clear evidence of war crimes’ in Bucha that demanded new measures. “I’m in favour of a new round of sanctions and in particular on coal and gasoline. We need to act,” Macron said.