Ukraine demands new Russia sanctions over ‘massacre’
Ukraine’s foreign minister called on the G7 on Sunday to impose “devastating” new sanctions on Moscow and accused Russia of carrying out a deliberate “massacre” in the town of Bucha outside Kyiv.
Ukraine said on Saturday its forces had retaken all areas around Kyiv and the mayor in Bucha, a liberated town 37 km (23 miles) northwest of the capital, said that 300 residents had been killed by the Russian army. “We are still gathering and looking for bodies, but the number has already gone into the hundreds,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said, according to his ministry.
The Ukrainian human rights ombudswoman said between 150 and 300 bodies may be in a mass grave by a church in the northern town of Bucha, where Ukraine accuses Russian troops of killing civilians. Russia called the allegations out of Bucha a "monstrous forgery" aimed at denigrating the Russian army.
Kremlin says peace talks should continue, lashes “hostile” Ukraine
Russia’s talks with a “hostile” Ukraine have not been easy, but the main thing is that they are continuing, RIA news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Saturday.
“Ukraine is a very difficult country, very difficult for us. In its current state it is hostile towards us,” the agency cited him as telling Belarus television. Russia and Ukraine have held several rounds of negotiations, both in Turkey and by video conference.
Dragging trolleys and clutching plastic bags with their meagre belongings, residents of the northeastern Ukrainian town of Derhachi, near the border with Russia, boarded buses on Wednesday to be evacuated as fears of a Russian assault grew.
Since pulling back from outside the capital Kyiv last week, Russian forces have shifted their assault towards Ukraine's south and east. Ukraine's general staff said the northeastern city of Kharkiv, the country's second-largest, remained under attack on Wednesday, and authorities expect Russian forces to launch a full-blown assault soon to try to take the city. Many in the town of Derhachi, which lies just north of Kharkiv and 30km (19 miles) from the border with Russia, have decided to leave while they can.
monthly limit of free stories.
with an Express account.
Buildings have already been badly damaged by Russian artillery. "The shelling has intensified in recent days. I am very worried for my children," said Mykola, a father of two who declined to give his surname, hugging his young son who was keeping warm under a fleece blanket.
He said he could hear the thud of bombardments every night, and had been hunkering down with his family in the corridor of their home."(We'll go) wherever there are no explosions, where the children won't have to hear them. I want it to be over as soon as possible," he said, struggling to hold back tears. At least eight buses and vans left the town on Wednesday in an evacuation organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross towards the city of Poltava, some 150 km to the west. (Reuters)
The United States assesses that Russia has now completed its withdrawal from around Kyiv and is believed to be refitting and resupplying its troops for an expected redeployment into Ukraine, a senior U.S. defense official said on Wednesday.
"We are assessing that all the Russians have left," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that the U.S. assessment was completely in the past 24 hours. (Reuters)
The United States is assisting with international efforts to collect evidence of possible war crimes committed in Ukraine by Russia, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Wednesday. The U.S. Department of Justice's senior prosecutor met with his French counterpart in Paris this week, Garland said. (Reuters)
The United States on Wednesday announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russian financial institutions, as well as Kremlin officials and their family members, following mounting global accusations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
The measures include banning new investment in Russia, sanctioning Russian President Vladimir Putin's adult children and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's family members.
A senior administration official told reporters that if Putin were to change course in Ukraine, sanctions could slow and possibly reverse. (Reuters)
European buyers are increasing shipments of coal from across the globe against a backdrop of a proposed European Union ban on Russian imports and the scramble to relieve tight gas supplies, according to data and shipping sources.
The European Commission on Tuesday proposed new sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, including a ban on buying Russian coal and on Russian ships entering EU ports.
The new restrictions come at a time of uncertainty about future gas deliveries from Russia to the EU later this month after the Kremlin's demand that buyers start paying Russian gas giant Gazprom in roubles.
In March, European countries imported a total of 7.1 million tonnes of thermal coal, which is used in power and heat generation, a 40.5% increase year-on-year and the highest level since March 2019, analysis from shipbroker Braemar ACM, based on ship tracking data, found.
"Despite Russian coal shipments to Europe in March still continuing at pre-war levels, the expected alteration in coal flows into Europe has started to show," Braemar dry bulk analyst Mark Nugent said. (Reuters)
The spokesperson of Russia's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that images of dead bodies strewn across the Ukrainian town of Bucha, which Russia says were staged, were designed to justify more sanctions against Moscow and derail peace talks with Kyiv.
Ukraine has accused the Russian military of massacring residents of Bucha, an area outside the capital Kyiv which Russian troops had occupied for several weeks before withdrawing. Western countries have called for those responsible for the murder of civilians to be punished. (Reuters)
Russia edged closer to a potential default on its international debt on Wednesday as it paid dollar bondholders in roubles and said it would continue to do so as long as its foreign exchange reserves are blocked by sanctions.
The United States on Monday stopped Russia from paying holders of its sovereign debt more than $600 million from reserves held at U.S. banks, saying Moscow had to choose between draining its dollar reserves and default. Russia has not defaulted on its external debt since reneging on payments due after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. "This speeds up the timeline around when Russia runs out of space on willingness and ability to pay," one fund manager holding one of the bonds due for payment on Monday said.
The Kremlin said it would continue to pay its dues. "Russia has all necessary resources to service its debts... If this blockade continues and payments aimed for servicing debts are blocked, it (future payment) could be made in roubles," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. (Reuters)
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Wednesday said foreign allies must impose maximum sanctions on Russia and provide Ukraine with all the weapons it needs in order to prevent the war spreading to other countries.
"The only way to avert Russian war expanding beyond Ukraine is to provide us with the fullest support. Maximum sanctions. All the weapons. The policy of 'not provoking (Russian President Vladimir) Putin' has failed badly in past years," Kuleba wrote on Twitter. (Reuters)
The governor of Ukraine's Donetsk region said at least two civilians were killed and five wounded on Wednesday when Russian artillery fire struck a humanitarian aid distribution point in the town of Vuhledar. In an online post, Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko shared photos of the alleged attack which showed two women stretched out on the ground, another person with serious wound to the leg and another person with a bloodied leg being helped into a rescue vehicle. (Reuters)
Pope Francis on Wednesday condemned "the massacre of Bucha" and kissed a Ukrainian flag sent from the town where tied bodies shot at close range littered the streets after Russian troops withdrew and bodies poked out of a mass grave at a church.
The deaths in Bucha, outside Kyiv, have triggered a global outcry and pledges of further sanctions against Moscow from the West.
"Recent news from the war in Ukraine, instead of bringing relief and hope, brought new atrocities, such as the massacre of Bucha," Francis said at the end of his weekly audience in the Vatican's auditorium. "Stop this war! Let the weapons fall silent! Stop sowing death and destruction," he said, decrying cruelty against civilians, defenceless women and children. (Reuters)
Russian forces have taken control of 60% of the town of Rubizhne in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region, which has suffered heavy shelling across its territory for the past 24 hours, Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said on Wednesday. "Sixty percent of Rubizhne is controlled by the Russians," Gaidai said in an online post, accusing a former official of assisting the Russian forces by handing over information.
Gaidai said Russian forces had carried out 81 mortar, artillery and rocket strikes across the region over the past day. Reuters could not independently verify the information. (Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has condemned "hesitancy" in Europe over barring Russian energy imports, arguing some leaders were more concerned with business losses than with war crimes. (Reuters)
Pope Francis has kissed a battered Ukrainian flag that was brought to him from the Ukrainian city of Bucha and called again for an end to the war.
Francis welcomed a half-dozen Ukrainian children up to the stage of the Vatican audience hall at the end of his Wednesday general audience and gave them each a giant chocolate Easter egg. He urged prayers for them and for all Ukrainians. (AP)
Hungary's foreign ministry summoned Ukraine's ambassador Wednesday over what it called offensive comments from Kyiv regarding Budapest's stance on Russia's invasion.
Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, in comments released three days after nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban was re-elected, said Hungary had condemned Russia's invasion, acknowledged Ukraine's sovereignty and taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the war.
So it was "time for Ukrainian leaders to stop their insults directed at Hungary and acknowledge the will of the Hungarian people," Szijjarto said in a statement, referring to Sunday's landslide election win. "This is not our war, so we want to and will stay out of it," Szijjarto added, reiterating the stance that helped Orban win a fourth consecutive term. (Reuters)
A Russian regional official said Wednesday that border guards in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine had come under fire.
"Yesterday, on April 5, they tried to fire mortars at the position of our border guards in the Sudzhansky district," said Roman Starovoit, the governor of the Kursk region. "Russian border guards returned fire... There were no casualties or damage on our side."
Starovoit said regional officials were in touch with the defence ministry about the incident and urged citizens to remain calm. In separate comments to RIA news agency, he said the mortars fired at the Sudzha border crossing did not reach Russian territory.There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine. (Reuters)
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said attributing political colour to India's actions vis-a-vis Ukraine situation is unfortunate. He was speaking at the Lok Sabha.
If India has chosen a side, it has chosen side of peace, he added. (PTI)
Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States have imposed outright bans on Russian oil purchases following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, but the European Union remains divided.
The bloc's 27 members have been unable to agree on an embargo, with Germany warning against hasty steps that could push the economy into recession, and some countries, such as Hungary, opposing any bans. Germany, however, aims to phase out Russian oil imports by the end of this year, officials said, as does Poland.
India and China, which have refused to condemn Russia's actions, continue to buy Russian crude, taking advantage of deep discounts as other buyers back away.
Refiners in India, the world's third biggest oil importer and consumer, have booked at least 14 million barrels of Russian oil since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. That compared with some 16 million barrels for the whole of 2021, data compiled by Reuters shows. (Reuters)
Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom continued to supply natural gas to Europe via Ukraine on Wednesday in line with requests from European consumers.
Requests stood at 108.4 million cubic metres for April 6, similar to volumes requested on the previous day, the Interfax news agency reported, citing the operator of Ukraine's gas pipelines. (Reuters)
Heavy fighting and Russian air strikes continue in the encircled Ukrainian city of Mariupol, British military intelligence said Wednesday.
"The humanitarian situation in the city is worsening," the defence ministry said. "Most of the 160,000 remaining residents have no light, communication, medicine, heat or water. Russian forces have prevented humanitarian access, likely to pressure defenders to surrender." (Reuters)
As gruesome videos and photos of bodies emerge from the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Kremlin-backed media are denouncing them as an elaborate hoax, which is a narrative that journalists in Ukraine have shown to be false.
In detailed broadcasts to millions of viewers, correspondents and hosts of Russian state TV channels said Tuesday that some photo and video evidence of the killings were fake while others showed that Ukrainians were responsible for the bloodshed.
"Among the first to appear were these Ukrainian shots, which show how a soulless body suddenly moves its hand," a report Monday on Russia-1's evening news broadcast declared. "And in the rearview mirror it is noticeable that the dead seem to be starting to rise even." (AP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar over the phone to review regional and global priorities, including the latest developments in Ukraine, a State Department spokesperson has said.
Blinken and Jaishankar also agreed to remain closely coordinated on developments. It was the second telephonic conversation between Jaishankar and Blinken in a week that came amid increasing disquiet in the West over India's indication to buy larger volumes of discounted crude oil from Russia.
"Secretary of State Antony J Blinken spoke with Indian External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar today to review regional and global priorities, including the situation in Ukraine," State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Tuesday. (PTI)
With Russia continuing to strike and encircle urban populations, from Chernihiv and Kharkiv in the north to Mariupol in the south, citizens across Ukraine have taken to sheltering in underground bunkers, metro stations and bomb shelters to stay alive.
?? The sanctions to be announced by the United States and its allies Wednesday will target Russian banks and officials and ban investment in Russia, the White House said, after officials in Washington and Kyiv accused Moscow of committing war crimes in Bucha.
?? The European Commission proposed new sanctions including banning Russian coal imports and halting trade worth nearly 20 billion euros ($22 billion) in retaliation over possible war crimes in Ukraine.
?? US chipmaker Intel Corp said it has suspended business operations in Russia, joining a slew of companies to exit the country following its invasion of Ukraine.
?? Thousands of autoworkers have been furloughed and food prices are soaring as Western sanctions pummel the small Russian city of Kaluga and its flagship foreign carmakers.
Responding to concerns on increase in oil prices due to the Ukraine crisis, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Puri said India’s percentage increase is merely one-tenth of what it is elsewhere.
“We have raised the price of petrol by Rs 9 over 12 or 13 days, whereas the international price has shot up. I have some figures, which show a comparison in prices of gasoline between April 2021 and March 2022. In USA, during that period the increase in prices of gasoline in terms of percentage is 51. In Canada, the increase is 52%; in Germany and the UK, it is 55%; in France, it is 50%; in Spain 58%, in Sri Lanka 55%. In India, it is just 5%,” he said.
Lok Sabha members, including those from the Opposition, on Tuesday heaped praise on the government’s efforts to evacuate Indian students from Ukraine.
RSP member N K Premachandran opened the debate under Rule 193 on the situation in Ukraine and commended the government’s efforts. DMK’s Dr Sumathy criticised India’s medical education policy.
Congress’s Shashi Tharoor commended the government for both the success of Operation Ganga and sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine. However, he criticised the statements at the UN while abstaining from the vote against Russia. (Read more)
?? The United States and its allies prepared new sanctions on Moscow over civilian killings in northern Ukraine, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as "war crimes" demanding commensurate punishment.
?? Russia is likely to launch a new offensive soon in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, Nato chief Stoltenberg said.
?? The Russian defence ministry says its forces will "liberate" the southeastern port of Mariupol from Ukrainian "nationalists".
?? A Dominica-flagged cargo ship sank in the besieged southern Ukrainian port of Mariupol after being targeted by Russian missile strikes, the vessel's flag registry said.
?? People are still only able to flee Mariupol on foot or by private car as attempts to organise mass evacuations by bus to safer parts of Ukraine have failed, Ukraine's deputy prime minister said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said French President Emmanuel Macron has agreed to provide technical and expert support for an investigation into crimes committed by Russian troops in Bucha and elsewhere.
Zelenskyy said Tuesday that he also asked Macron to help the people trapped in the besieged southern city of Mariupol.
In an interview with Turkey's Haberturk television in Kyiv, Zelenskyy accused Russia of trying to hide its actions in Mariupol and didn't want humanitarian aid to enter the city "until they clean it all up." (AP)
Ukrainian officials have said the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv that were recaptured from Russian forces in recent days. The Ukrainian prosecutor-general's office has described one room discovered in Bucha as a "torture chamber."
High-resolution satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed that many of the bodies had been lying in the open for weeks, during the time that Russian forces were in the town.
The grisly images of battered and burned corpses left out in the open or hastily buried has led to calls for tougher sanctions against the Kremlin, especially a cutoff of fuel imports from Russia.
US President Joe Biden approved a $100 million transfer of Javelin anti-armor missiles to Ukraine Tuesday, according to an administration official. The transfer brings the total of US military assistance for Ukraine to $2.4 billion since Biden took office last January.
The White House announced late Tuesday that Biden approved the assistance, which is funded as part of a broader $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine approved by Congress last month after Russia's invasion.
The administration official confirmed that it was for a transfer of the Javelin missiles, which have been requested by the Ukrainian military to combat Russian armor. (AP)
US chipmaker Intel Corp said it has suspended business operations in Russia, joining a slew of companies to exit the country following its invasion of Ukraine.
The company, which had last month suspended shipments to customers in Russia and Belarus, said it has implemented business continuity measures to minimise disruption to its global operations.
"Intel continues to join the global community in condemning Russia's war against Ukraine and calling for a swift return to peace," the company said. (Reuters)
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian troops of committing “the most terrible war crimes” since World War II in an address to the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday as outrage and revulsion swept through Western capitals at what appeared to be incontrovertible evidence of grisly civilian massacres in Ukrainian areas vacated recently by Russian forces.
Until Tuesday afternoon, officials had counted bodies of at least 410 civilians in towns around Kyiv, where Russian and Ukrainian forces battled from around February 27 until the beginning of April when, as the invaders withdrew, evidence of likely war crimes began to emerge. (Read more)
With images of civilian bodies littering the streets of Bucha sparking a global outcry, India Tuesday “unequivocally condemned” the killings as “deeply disturbing” and supported the call for an “independent probe” into the happenings in the Ukrainian town which had been under Russian occupation until recently.
This is the strongest statement by New Delhi so far on Russia’s actions following its invasion of Ukraine which began February 24. (Read more)
As condemnation over the mass graves found in Bucha climbs, another Ukrainian town of Trostianets is in focus over evidence of alleged Russian barbarity, as per media reports. It is estimated that around 50 people have been killed, according to the town's mayor.
The Guardian reported that Trostianets, a small town around 55km from Sumy, left behind a carnage of "several mangled tanks, the whitened carcass of a self-propelled howitzer and a shot-up yellow bus with blood smeared on the seats."
"Hundreds of green ammunition boxes and casings remain, evidence of the shells and Grad missiles the Russians fired from Trostianets into neighbouring towns. Surviving buildings have been daubed with pro-Russian slogans, and crude insults about the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy," it reported.
One of the world’s most derided visions of international affairs is Samuel Huntington’s infamous “Clash of Civilisations”. Huntington saw the state of the post-Cold War conflict as chiefly being between civilisational complexes that had shared history, geographic contiguity and a common culture. He argued that the primary axis of future conflict would be cultural fault lines between civilisations rather than between political ideologies.
Huntington mapped civilisations largely in line with geographically clustered ethno-religious groupings. For example, he predicted (in 1993) that the Islamic world would be the Western culture’s chief antagonist, the likelihood of a Sino-Islamic alliance, and positioned India (“Hindu” culture) and Russia (“Orthodox” culture) as “swing civilisations”. It is particularly interesting to dust off Huntington’s pages and revisit his predictions regarding Russia and India. Most importantly, he also identified Ukraine as a unique “cleft” between civilisations due to the linguistic and religious divide between western and eastern Ukraine. (Read more)
The United States and its allies were set Wednesday to impose new sanctions on Moscow over civilian killings in northern Ukraine, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as "war crimes" demanding commensurate punishment.
Western sanctions on Russia over its nearly six-week invasion of its neighbour gained new impetus this week after dead civilians shot at close range were discovered in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, seized back from Russian forces.
Russia denied targeting civilians in Bucha and described evidence presented as a "monstrous forgery" staged by the West to discredit it. (Reuters)
Describing reports of civilian killings in the Ukrainian city of Bucha as “deeply disturbing”, India on Tuesday supported the call for an independent investigation.
“The situation in Ukraine has not shown any significant improvement since the Council last discussed the issue. The security situation has only deteriorated, as well as its humanitarian consequences,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti told a meeting on Ukraine in the UN Security Council that was addressed for the first time by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Thanking Zelenskyy’s participation at the meeting, Tirumurti said “recent reports of civilian killings in Bucha are deeply disturbing. We unequivocally condemn these killings and support the call for an independent investigation.” Read more
President Zelenskyy told the UNSC that the actions of Russian troops are “no different from other terrorists such as Daesh”, The Guardian reported.
“They pursued a consistent policy of destroying ethnic and religious diversity, then inflame wars and deliberately lead them in such a way that to kill as many regular civilians. Some of them were shot on the streets, others were thrown into the wells so they die. They are in suffering. They were killed in their apartments, houses blown up by grenades,” he said.
“The civilians were crushed by tanks while sitting in their cars in the middle of the road just for their pleasure. They cut off limbs, slashed their throats. Women were raped and killed in front of their children. Their tongues were pulled out only because the aggressors did not want to hear from them,” he added.
Ukraine President Zelenskyy calls for Russia's expulsion from UN Security Council
Ukraine President Zelenskyy on Tuesday urged UNSC to seek full accountability for Russian actions in Ukraine. Russia wants to turn Ukraine into silent slaves, he said, calling on UN to act immediately.
“We are dealing with a state that is turning the veto in UNSC into the right to die…The Russian military and those who gave them orders must be brought to justice.” (Reuters)
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is now addressing the UN security council meeting.
“Yesterday I returned from our city of Bucha, recently liberated from Russian troops not far from Kyiv. There is not a single crime that they would not commit. The Russian military searched for and purposefully killed anyone who served our country,” he said, The Guardian reported.
“They shot and killed women outside their houses when they just tried to call someone who is alive, they killed entire families, adults and children and they tried to burn the bodies.”
UN aid chief tells security council 1,430 civilians killed in Ukraine, including 121 children, “likely a serious underestimate” (Reuters)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday the killings in the Ukrainian town of Bucha were no random act of a rogue unit but part of a deliberate Russian campaign to commit atrocities.
He offered no evidence to support his assertion of a deliberate campaign.
But before departing for a NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels, he told reporters Washington backed Ukrainian efforts to investigate what happened."What we've seen in Bucha is not the random act of a rogue unit," he said. "It's a deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities. The reports are more than credible, the evidence is there for the world to see." (Reuters)
US to seek Russia's suspension from UN Human Rights Council, says US ambassador (AFP)
The European Commission proposed on Tuesday new sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, including a ban on buying Russian coal and on Russian ships entering EU ports, and said it was working on banning oil imports too.
"We all saw the gruesome pictures from Bucha and other areas from which Russian troops have recently left. These atrocities cannot and will not be left unanswered," the head of the European Union's executive, Ursula von der Leyen, said.
"The four packages of sanctions have hit hard and limited the Kremlin's political and economic options. In view of events we need to increase our pressure further," she said in a speech posted on Twitter. She said the proposal entailed an EU ban on imports of coal from Russia worth 4 billion euros per year, and a full transaction ban on four key Russian banks, including the country's second-largest, VTB.
"We are working on additional sanctions, including on oil imports, and we are reflecting on some of the ideas presented by the member states, such as taxes or specific payment channels such as an escrow account," von der Leyen said. (Reuters)
Russia doesn't reject the possibility of a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but it can only happen once a document has been agreed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.Russia and Ukraine are continuing intensive peace talks via video link, Interfax news agency cited a deputy Russian foreign minister as saying earlier on Tuesday.Peskov declined to comment on the progress of the talks. (Reuters)
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Western allegations Russian forces committed war crimes by executing civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha were a "monstrous forgery" aimed at denigrating the Russian army.
Since Russian troops withdrew from towns and villages around the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Ukrainian troops have been showing journalists corpses of what they say are civilians killed by Russian forces, destroyed houses and burnt-out cars.The West says the dead civilians are evidence of war crimes. Reuters saw dead bodies in the town of Bucha but could not independently verify who was responsible for the killings. "It is a simply a well-directed - but tragic - show," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "It is a forgery aimed at denigrating the Russian army - and it will not work."
"We once again urge the international community: detach yourself from such emotional perceptions and think with your head," Peskov said. "Compare the facts and understand what a monstrous forgery we are dealing with. "Ukraine says Russia is guilty of genocide and U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of war crimes and called for a trial.
The Kremlin said Biden's remarks were unacceptable and unworthy of a leader of the United States. The outcry over the discovery of so many dead civilians, some shot in the head, after Russia's withdrawal from areas around Kyiv, has prompted Western promises to impose even tougher sanctions on Russia. (Reuters)
The flow of "bloody money" to Russia must stop, Kyiv's mayor said on Tuesday as the West prepared new sanctions on Moscow after dead civilians were found lining the streets of a Ukrainian town seized from Russian invaders. Since Russian forces withdrew from northern Ukraine, turning their assault on the south and east, grim images from the town of Bucha near Kyiv, including a mass grave and bound bodies of people shot at close range, have prompted international outrage.
Russia denies targeting civilians and said the deaths had been staged by the West to discredit it. Sanctions already imposed have isolated Russia's economy but its gas is still flowing to Europe and a number of international companies continue to do business there, leading Ukraine to say more is needed to starve Moscow's war effort.
"Every euro, every cent that you receive from Russia or that you send to Russia has blood, it is bloody money and the blood of this money is Ukrainian blood, the blood of Ukrainian people," Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko, dressed in military clothes, told a mayors' conference in Geneva via video link. (Reuters)
Sweden will expel three Russian diplomats for spying, Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on Tuesday, joining a number of European countries which have expelled Russian diplomats in recent days.
"It is because they are not following the Vienna Convention and they are undertaking illegal intelligence-gathering operations," Linde told reporters. France, Belgium and the Netherlands have recently expelled Russian diplomats over alleged spying activity.
The moves coincide with outrage across the continent over reports of the discovery of mass graves and of civilian killings in the Ukrainian town of Bucha following the retreat of Russian soldiers, conducting what Moscow calls its "special operation" in Ukraine. (Reuters)
A Ukrainian presidential adviser said on Tuesday a separate court should be set up to handle crimes committed during the war in Ukraine along the lines of the Hague-based court that prosecuted war crimes committed in former Yugoslavia.
Speaking on national television, adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said the court would need to handle cases including the alleged killing of civilians by Russian troops in the Kyiv region town of Bucha. Russia has described the allegations as "fake news". (Reuters)
Amid outrage over civilian deaths in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to address the UN Security Council later on Tuesday. As evidence of alleged torture and killings grows, with bodies being found in the streets of Bucha, calls for tougher sanctions and cutting off gas imports have been raised.
Here are the top developments from the Russia-Ukraine war now.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the situation is improving in the city and people are returning, but the Eastern Ukraine remains critical.
Citing the Mariupol Mayor, he said that over 5,000 civilians have died in the city situated in southeastern Ukraine. Meanwhile, almost 20,000 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine, he added, without citing evidence.
He described the "genocide of Ukrainians" following a visit to Kyiv's satellite towns like Bucha this week. He described seeing dead civilians, including an old woman, and a car with a white flag and the letters "children" on the outside that was shot up and had blood inside.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that killings in Bucha showed the phrase 'denazification' applies more to Russia than to Ukraine.
Amid reports of Russian troops withdrawing from certain Ukrainian towns and cities, Zelenskyy added that the troops could "return in two year" and said the country needs "security guarantees".
Zelenskyy says Ukraine-Russia talks 'only option' but he may not hold talks with Putin
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said holding negotiations with Russia was the only option for his country although the possibility of having talks was now a "challenge". But in comments broadcast on national television, he said it was possible that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin would not personally hold talks. (Reuters)
Ukraine's General Staff reports morning that Russia is regrouping its troops and preparing for an offensive in Donbas.
"The goal is to establish full control over the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions,'' the update posted on the General Staff's Facebook page says.
In the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the Russian military are focusing their efforts on taking control of Popasna and Rubizhne cities, as well as establishing full control over Mariupol, the General Staff said. Other towns and settlements in the two regions are subject to continued shelling.
The Russian troops also continue to block Kharkiv, according to the General Staff.
Russia's top lawmaker said that civilian killings in the Ukrainian town of Bucha were part of a deceitful attempt by the West to discredit Russia, according to Reuters.
"The situation in Bucha is a provocation aimed at discrediting Russia," Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, the Duma, said.
"Washington and Brussels are the screenwriters and directors and Kyiv are the actors," Volodin said. "There are no facts - just lies."
Moscow faced global revulsion and accusations of war crimes after the Russian pullout from the outskirts of Kyiv revealed streets strewn with corpses of what appeared to be civilians, some of whom had seemingly been killed at close range.
The grisly images of battered bodies left out in the open or hastily buried led to calls for tougher sanctions against the Kremlin, namely a cutoff of fuel imports from Russia. Germany and France reacted by expelling dozens of Russian diplomats, suggesting they were spies, and U.S. President Joe Biden said Russian leader Vladimir Putin should be tried for war crimes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left the capital, Kyiv, for his first reported trip since the war began nearly six weeks ago to see for himself what he called the "genocide" and "war crimes" in Bucha. He said dead people had been "found in barrels, basements, strangled, tortured". (AP)
A top official in the global campaign against the use of land mines urged Russia to stop its troops in Ukraine from laying the weapons that too often kill and maim civilians.
Alicia Arango Olmos, Colombia's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and this year's president of the state parties to the 1997 convention banning the production and use of land mines, expressed deep concern at media reports that Russia is using land mines in its war in Ukraine.
She pointed to Human Rights Watch, which said on March 29 that Ukrainian explosive ordnance disposal technicians located banned anti-personnel mines in the eastern Kharkiv region a day earlier. (AP)
Kyiv Independent journalist Anastasiia Lapatina shared an image showing a toddler who had contacts of family members written on the back. Ukrainian mothers are writing these contacts on the bodies of their children in case they get killed and the child survives, she wrote.
"And Europe is still discussing gas,"she went on to say, hitting out at reports of European Union officials discussing new measures against Moscow after news of troops executing civilians.
The Japanese government flew 20 Ukrainian refugees into Tokyo on Tuesday in a high-profile show of support for the international effort to help Ukraine by a country that has long been reluctant to take in foreigners.
The 20 - aged from 6 and 66 and including 15 women - are not the first Ukrainian refugees to arrive in Japan since Russia invaded their homeland on February 24 - but they are the first to be flown in on a special government plane on a trip arranged by Japan's foreign minister.
"The government of Japan is committed to provide the maximum support to these 20 Ukrainians to help them live with a sense of peace in Japan, even though they are far away from their home country," Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters in Poland.(Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he would address the UN Security Council on Tuesday and predicted further, worse instances of mass killings of civilians by Russian troops would be discovered.
Tuesday's Security Council session is to consider Ukrainian allegations of the murder of civilians by Russian soldiers in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, following the discovery of hundreds of bodies, some bound and shot at close range.
Russia has categorically denied the accusations, calling them "criminal provocations" and says it will present "empirical evidence" to the Security Council that its forces have not been involved in atrocities.
The Ukrainian leader has already spoken by video link to more than a dozen assemblies - including the US Congress, the British parliament and the European Parliament. (Reuters)