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Ukraine War: Ukraine accuses Russia of massacre

BUCHA, UKRAINE –
Warning: This story contains disturbing details.

As foreign outrage grows over evidence of possible executions and other atrocities by Russian forces in Ukraine, Germany’s defense minister says Europe must consider stepping up its defenses. punished Moscow by boycotting gas exports, an economically painful step that previous European leaders had avoided.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Monday that “we strongly condemn attacks on civilians” following reports of bodies found showing signs of torture in areas occupied by Russian troops. abandoned. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called reports of rape and other atrocities by Russian soldiers “reprehensible”.

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called in a video shown during the Grammy Awards in Las Vegas for other musicians and artists to help tell the story of the Russian invasion. “Support us in any way you can,” Zelenskyy said.

Also on Sunday, at least seven people were killed and 34 injured, including three children, as a result of Russian shelling on Kharkiv in the northeast, Ukraine’s second-largest city, according to the regional prosecutor’s office. area. At the Black Sea port of Mykolaiv, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said at least one person died in the shelling and 14 were injured.

Ukrainian officials say the bodies of 410 civilians have been found in towns around the capital Kyiv, which have been recaptured by Russian forces.

In Bucha, northwest of the capital, Associated Press journalists saw 21 bodies. A group of nine people, all dressed in civilian clothes, were scattered around a site that residents say the Russian military has used as a base. They appear to have been shot at close range. At least two people had their hands tied behind their backs.

Zelenskyy called the killings evidence of genocide, but the Russian Defense Ministry denied the allegation. It said photos and videos of the corpse “have been curated by the Kyiv regime for the Western media.”

The ministry said “not a single civilian” in Bucha has faced any violent military action and the mayor did not mention any abuse a day after the Russian troops left.

The February 24 invasion of Russia by Russian President Vladimir Putin left thousands dead and more than 4 million Ukrainians forced to flee their country. Putin said the attack was aimed at removing a security threat after the Ukrainian government pursued membership in the US-European military alliance NATO.

The head of Ukraine’s delegation to Russia said that Moscow’s negotiators had informally agreed to most of the draft proposal discussed during the talks in Istanbul, but no written confirmation. be provided. Russia’s demands include Ukraine declaring its neutrality and giving up membership in military alliances.

Russian forces have withdrawn from some areas around Kyiv after Moscow said it was focusing its offensive on the east of the country, where two areas are controlled by Russian-backed separatists . Russian troops overran Bucha in the early days of the invasion and remained until 30 March.

German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht told public broadcaster ARD that reports of atrocities were serious enough that European officials “will have to talk about stopping gas supplies from Russia”.

Europe gets 40% of its gas and 25% of its oil from Russia, while such sales are the Kremlin’s main source of export income.

Governments have been trying to find ways to reduce that dependence. Estimates of the impact of a gas boycott on European countries vary, but most involve significant losses in economic output.

For its part, Russia is temporarily struggling as global prices rise due to worries about possible supply disruptions.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko urged countries to stop importing Russian gas. He said they were funding the murders.

On Saturday, Lithuania announced it had stopped importing Russian gas and urged other European governments to do the same.

“If we can do it, the rest of Europe can too!” President Gitana Nausea said on Twitter, calling Russia an “invader”.

Some European leaders say the killings in the Kyiv area have been attributed to war crimes.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the images of what happened near Kyiv “a punch in the gut” on CNN’s “State of the Union”. The United States has previously said that it believes Russia has committed war crimes.

“It is a brutality against civilians that we have not seen in Europe in decades,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on the same broadcast.

Russia requested a meeting Monday of the United Nations Security Council to discuss events in the city. The United States and Britain recently accused Russia of using Security Council meetings to spread disinformation.

One resident in Bucha, who declined to be named out of fear for his safety, said Russian troops had entered the building and taken people out of the basements where they were hiding. The resident said soldiers checked their phones for evidence of anti-Russian activity and took away or fired.

The AP also saw two bodies of a man and a woman, wrapped in plastic that residents said they had wrapped and placed in a shaft until a proper funeral could be arranged.

“He raised his hand, and they shot him,” said one resident, who declined to be identified.

Oleksiy Arestovych, Zelenskyy’s adviser, claimed some of the women were raped before being killed and the Russians burned the bodies afterwards.

On Monday, the Ukrainian military said its forces had recaptured several towns in the Chernihiv region and that humanitarian aid was being delivered. According to the Ukrainian news agency RBK, the road between Chernihiv and Kyiv will be clear again tomorrow morning.

The mayor of Chernihiv, which had been cut off from food and other supplies for weeks, said Russian shelling had destroyed 70% of the northern city.

In a video address posted online Sunday, Zelenskyy said Russian soldiers who killed and tortured civilians were responsible for “centralized crimes”.

“The time has come to do everything possible to make war crimes committed by the Russian military the ultimate manifestation of such crimes on earth,” he said in comments translated by his office.

The President directed some of his remarks to the mothers of Russian soldiers.

“Even if you raise looters, how do they become butchers?” he say. “You cannot ignore that they are deprived of everything human. There is no soul. No heart. They kill people knowingly and with pleasure.”

In Motyzhyn, about 50 kilometers west of Kyiv, residents told the AP that Russian troops killed the town’s mayor, her husband and her son and then dumped their bodies into pits in the pine forest behind houses where the troops were. Russia slept.

Inside the pit, AP journalists found four bodies of people who appeared to have been shot at close range. The mayor’s husband had his hands behind his back, a piece of string nearby, and a piece of plastic wrapped around his eyes like a blindfold.

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk confirmed that the mayor was killed while in the custody of Russian forces.

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Qena reports from Motyzhyn, Ukraine. Yuras Karmanau of Lviv, Ukraine, and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed.

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