Ukraine-Russia war live updates: ScoMo and Dutton targeted by Putin after Australian sanctions
Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton are among more than 200 Australians banned from Russia, as the UN takes action against Vladimir Putin.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Defence Minister Peter Dutton are among 228 Australian officials banned from entering Russia in response to sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s favourite oligarchs.
The Kremlin announced much of the Australia’s parliament would be barred from entering the Russian Federation, starting immediately, in direct response to sanctions against 67 oligarchs, including the “Butcher of Mariupol”.
“Members of the Australian National Security Committee, the House of Representatives, the Senate and regional legislative assemblies are included on the ‘stop list’ of persons who are denied entry to Russia,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
It came after Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne announced the sanctions in Brussels as she met with her NATO counterparts.
The 67 Russians she slapped sanctions on included the notorious “Butcher of Mariupol”, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev.
RUSSIA CONCEDED ‘SIGNIFICANT’ TROOP LOSSES
Russian troops have suffered “significant losses” in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
In an interview with Britain’s Sky News, he said the military casualties were “a huge tragedy for us” but did not specify a toll. Russia in late March said it had lost 1,351 soldiers with another 3,825 wounded
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman also defended the causes and course of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“Mariupol is going to be liberated from nationalistic battalions. We hope it is going to happen sooner than later,” he said of the devastated port city.
UN SUSPENDS RUSSIA FROM HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
Russia vowed to defend its “interests” after it was suspended from the UN Human Rights Council over its invasion of Ukraine.
It was only the second ever suspension of a country from the council after Libya in 2011. China, Iran, Cuba, Belarus and Syria were among the countries that voted against the suspension.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Britain’s Sky News they were “sorry” to be suspended from the council, but added “we’ll continue to defend our interests using every possible legal means”.
The US argues that suspending Russia from the human rights monitor is more than symbolic, and intensifies Russia’s isolation after the assault on Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also called for Russia to be expelled from the UN Security Council “so it cannot block decisions about its own aggression, its own war.” Russia’s position on the Security Council gives it a veto against being voted out.
AUSTRALIA SANCTIONS ‘BUTCHER OF MARIUPOL’
Australia will slap sanctions on 67 Russians over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, including the notorious “Butcher of Mariupol Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev.
Mizintsev, 59, is the head of Russia’s National Centre for Defence Management and directed the siege of the port city, according to Ukraine.
More than 80 per cent of Mariupol’s infrastructure is thought to have been destroyed by siege led by Mizintsev, who also led the Russian bombing of Aleppo, in Syria.
In video briefings published by state broadcasters, Mizintsev accused Ukrainian “bandits”, “neo-Nazis” and nationalists of engaging in “mass terror”. He also claimed that Russia was not using heavy weaponry against Mariupol.
Among the attacks he is sanctioned for ordering was the bombing of Mariupol’s theatre, where civilians were sheltering from the Russian bombardment.
The United Nations called the humanitarian crisis in Mariupol “extremely dire”, and the evacuation corridor out of the city has been a sticking point in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne announced the sanctions in Brussels as she met with her NATO counterparts.
“Today, I’m announcing 67 further sanctions of Russian elites and oligarchs, those close to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin who facilitate and support his outrageous actions,” she told reporters.
Ms Payne arrived in Brussels to meet with ATO members to discuss the Ukraine war.
She shared photos of her meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“In Brussels, @SecBlinken & I reaffirmed our resolve to hold those responsible for horrific crimes in #Ukraine to account. We also discussed progress towards shared objectives in the #IndoPacific & regional security concerns,” she tweeted.
In Brussels, @SecBlinken & I reaffirmed our resolve to hold those responsible for horrific crimes in #Ukraine to account. We also discussed progress towards 🇦🇺+🇺🇸 shared objectives in the #IndoPacific & regional security concerns. pic.twitter.com/Xhvvo3ZGX1
— Marise Payne (@MarisePayne) April 7, 2022
RUSSIA: ‘DO NOT DIG FOR SCREAMING VICTIMS’
It comes as rescuers responding to screams for help from people buried alive under rubble after air strikes outside Kyiv have reportedly been told by Russian soldiers that they’ll “be shot” if they try to dig them out.
Borodyanka has been reduced to little more than a wasteland amid fears the death toll could be even higher than hard-hit Bucha after terrifying Russian air strikes buried civilians beneath rubble.
The Ukrainian government said that while hundreds of bodies had been found in Bucha, the region worst hit in terms of victims could be Borodyanka, 45km northwest of Kyiv.
The small town just northwest of the capital was one of the first areas to be decimated after Vladimir Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine on February 24. Russian jets tore across the town, unleashing bombs from above as several apartment blocks crumbled – burying the dozens of people taking shelter in their apartments.
Borodyanka resident Svitlana Stashevskyi told the BBC that she watched the Russian air strikes bury people alive.
She claims Russian troops even stopped rescuers digging to save people crushed by the mounds of smouldering rubble as their harrowing screams rung out.
“Shortly after the air strike, people nearby heard voices shouting for help. “The Russian soldiers stopped them digging. They threatened to shoot if they tried.”
According to reports, Russia fired rockets directly at people’s homes in the town – despite agreeing not to target citizens.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there is “already information that the number of victims of the occupiers may be even higher in Borodyanka and some other liberated cities”. “In many villages of the liberated districts of the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the occupiers did things that the locals had not seen even during the Nazi occupation 80 years ago,” he added.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said his country was working with Ukrainian prosecutors and the UN human rights council investigation to “put the evidence together” linking senior officials in Moscow with war crimes.
“What we’ve seen in Bucha is not the random act of a rogue unit. It’s a deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities,” he said.
“The reports are more than credible. The evidence is there for the world to see.”
PUTIN’S DAUGHTERS IN SANCTIONS FIRING LINE
The US has announced it will impose sanctions against Putin’s two adult daughters and “full blocking” sanctions on Russia’s largest public and private financial institutions, Sberbank and Alfa Bank.
Gymnast Katerina Tikhonova, 35, and endocrinologist Mariya Vorontsova, 36, who are mostly kept out of public gaze, have been added to the list of politicians, oligarchs, propagandists and their families targeted for European Union sanctions.
Vorontsova and Tikhonova are the children of Putin and his first wife, Lyudmila Putina, a former Aeroflat flight attendant. The Kremlin announced she and Putin were divorcing in 2013.
Putin’s family members have long been thought to have been hiding his assets.
“We have we have reason to believe that many of his cronies and the oligarchs hide their wealth – hide their assets with family members that place their assets and their wealth in the US financial system,” a senior administration official told reporters on Wednesday.
“We believe that many of Putin’s assets are hidden with family members and that’s why we’re targeting them.”
The sanctions will also apply to Russian foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s wife and daughter, members of Russia’s Security Council, including former President and Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev – who was once seen years ago as a potential reformer – and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
The US has already sanctioned more than 140 oligarchs and their family members and over 400 Russian government officials, the senior official said.
“Today we’re dramatically escalating the financial shock by imposing full blocking sanctions on Russia’s largest financial institution, Sberbank, and its largest private bank, Alfa Bank,” a senior administration official briefing reporters said.
Sberbank holds nearly one-third of Russia’s total banking sector assets, the official noted, adding that the US has now fully blocked “more than two-thirds of the Russian banking sector.”
All new US investment in Russia is also now prohibited, the White House announced on Wednesday.
The US will also apply full blocking sanctions on critical major Russian state-owned enterprises, which will be announced by the Department of Treasury on Thursday.
The Russian finance ministry said earlier in the day that it had been forced to repay $649.2 million to foreign debt-holders in rubles after a correspondent bank refused to execute payment instructions.
Ratings agencies have downgraded Russia and warned that payments of dollar-denominated debt in local currency would constitute a sovereign default, the country’s first in decades.
The United States this week barred Russia from making debt payments using funds held at American banks, ramping up the economic pain in Moscow.
“A foreign correspondent bank refused to execute instructions for the payment” of debt on two eurobonds on April 4, the Russian finance ministry said.
“In order to fulfil the state debt obligations,” the ministry said it “was forced to call upon a Russian financial institution to make the necessary payments”.
The finance ministry did not specify whether the ruble payment had been accepted.
“If Russia attempts to transfer payment in rubles – as it has warned in the past – via a special payment procedure set up in mid-March for bonds that do not have a ruble repayment clause, this will constitute default,” said Elina Ribakova, deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, a US-headquartered financial industry association.
Russia said Wednesday it had been forced to make foreign debt payments on dollar-denominated bonds in rubles, raising the prospect of a potential default amid unprecedented Western sanctions over the Ukraine conflict.
The announcement came on the 42nd day of Russia’s military campaign in pro-Western Ukraine, with thousands killed and more than 11 million having fled their homes or the country in the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
The West has pummelled Russia with debilitating sanctions since President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine on February 24.
Earlier, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stressed to the European parliament that the bloc’s payments for Russian fossil fuels were funding Putin’s war.
“A billion euros ($A1.4 billion) is what we have paid Putin every day for the energy he provides us since the beginning of the war. We have given him 35 billion euros ($A50.3 billion),” since the February 24 invasion date, Borrell said.
“Compare that to the one billion (euros) that we have given to the Ukraine in arms and weapons.”
Meanwhile, Dutch customs authorities have impounded 14 yachts in shipyards, including 12 still under construction, as part of Western sanctions.
European and US authorities also have seized several yachts with links to Russian tycoons under the sanctions.
“Given the current measures, these vessels cannot be delivered, transferred or exported for the moment,” Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra wrote in a letter to the Dutch parliament.
“The 12 yachts under construction, which include luxury vessels more than 35m long, were being built in five different shipyards for Russian beneficiaries,” the government said.
The other two yachts are currently undergoing maintenance.
“These are not people who figure on the European sanctions lists,” the Dutch minister said.
The Netherlands has also frozen 516 million euros’ worth of assets and 155 million euros in transactions, the minister said.
POPE CONDEMNS ‘HORRENDOUS CRUELTY’
Pope Francis on Wednesday hit out at the “ever more horrendous cruelty” in Ukraine, after the murder of civilians in the town of Bucha near the capital.
“The recent news about the war in Ukraine, instead of bringing relief and hope, instead attests to new atrocities, such as the Bucha massacre,” Francis said during his weekly general audience at the Vatican.
“Ever more horrendous cruelties, also perpetrated against defenceless civilians, women and children. These are victims whose innocent blood cries out to heaven and begs for mercy,” he said.
Francis, 85, then stood and held up a flag he said “comes from the war. From that martyred city Bucha”.
He then folded the flag and kissed it.
The discovery of dozens of bodies in mass graves or littering the streets in Bucha over the weekend has sparked global outrage.
Francis also deplored the “powerlessness of international organisations” in the face of the Russian aggression.
“After the Second World War, attempts were made to lay the foundations for a new history of peace, but unfortunately the old history of competing great powers continued,” he said.
“And in the current war in Ukraine, we are witnessing the powerlessness of international organisations”.
RUSSIANS ‘BURNED SWASTIKAS’ INTO VICTIMS’ BODIES
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made astonishing claims about Russians cutting out the tongues of civilians, slashing their throats, and raping women in front of their children.
In a video address on Tuesday, Mr Zelenskyy told the United Nations Security Council that the Russians had committed “the most terrible war crimes” since WWII and accused the invaders of unleashing terror on Ukrainians “just for their pleasure”.
He told the Council, including Moscow’s envoy, that women were raped in front of their children, and that civilians had their throats slashed, limbs cut off and tongues cut out.
“They killed entire families — adults and children — and they tried to burn the bodies,” Mr Zelenskyy said.
“I am addressing you on behalf of the people who honour the memory of the deceased every single day.”
He described how Russian forces targeted civilians in their cars and on the street, as well as in their own homes.
“Some of them were shot on the streets, others were thrown into wells so they died there in suffering. They were killed in their apartments, their houses. Civilians were crushed by tanks while sitting in their cars in the middle of the road — just for their pleasure,” he said.
He also claimed the militants raped and killed Ukrainian women in front of their families.
“They cut off limbs, slashed their throats … Their tongues were pulled out only because the aggressor did not hear what they wanted to hear from them,” he said.
“This is no different from other terrorists, such as Daesh.
“Here it is done by a member of the United Nations Security Council.”
Mr Zelenskyy compared Russia to Islamic State and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “exporting” his hatred into other countries, not only Ukraine.
“Where is the peace? Where are those guarantees that the UN needs to guarantee?” he asked.
“Geography may be different or various, but cruelty is the same, crimes are the same, and accountability must be inevitable.”
Mr Zelenskyy added that “hundreds of thousands” of Ukrainians had also been deported to Russia.
He ended his address with a graphic video compilation showing bodies of Ukrainian civilians in Irpin and Bucha on the outskirts of Kyiv, in Dymerka outside of Chernihiv, and the port city of Mariupol.
The disturbing footage showed some of the bodies buried in mass graves while others were simply strewn on the street or had apparently fallen from nearby bicycles.
Some had obvious wounds, while others were burned or dismembered.
“Speaking in my national capacity, we are appalled by what we have seen, and reiterate our solidarity with Ukraine,” Barbara Woodward, the UK’s ambassador to the UN and president of the Security Council said in response.
More allegations emerged that Russian soldiers have raped girls as young as 10 and burned swastikas into their victims’ bodies.
Tortured body of a raped and killed woman. I’m speechless. My@mind is paralyzed with anger and fear and hatred. #StopGenocide#StopPutinNOWpic.twitter.com/Kl0ufDigJi
— Lesia Vasylenko (@lesiavasylenko) April 3, 2022
Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko said that “10-year-old girls” have been found with “vaginal and rectal tears” after being raped, while dead women have been found “with swastika shaped burns.”
She shared an image of one such Nazi symbol scarred into flesh, insisting it was found on the “tortured body of a raped and killed woman.”
“I’m speechless. My mind is paralysed with anger and fear and hatred,” she tweeted.
“Russian Men did this. And Russian mothers raised them. A nation of immoral criminals,” she wrote.
UKRAINE GETS $100M IN US MILITARY AID
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced an additional $100 million in American military aid would be sent to Ukraine following reports of atrocities committed there by invading Russian forces.
“I have authorised, pursuant to a delegation from the President earlier today, the immediate drawdown of security assistance valued at up to $100 million to meet Ukraine’s urgent need for additional anti-armour systems,” Blinken said in a statement.
STARS UNITE FOR UKRAINE
Music stars including Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and Metallica have joined the Stand Up for Ukraine social media campaign.
The Global Citizen-organised initiative will feature musicians coming together on social media on April 8 to show support for Ukraine as it continues to fight against Russia’s ongoing invasion.
Stand Up for Ukraine is urging people across the globe to call on world leaders to commit billions of dollars to help refugees.
Other artists taking part include Nuno Bettencourt, Carole King, Fall Out Boy, Julian Lennon, Billy Joel, Elton John, Stevie Nicks, U2, Ozzy Osbourne, Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Annie Lennox and Alanis Morissette.
‘TORTURE CHAMBER’ FOUND IN BUCHA
Ukrainian police have found a “torture chamber” in the basement of a children’s facility in the devastated city of Bucha, according to government officials.
A post on Telegram from the prosecutor general’s office said: “Police found the bodies of five men with their hands tied. Military personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation tortured unarmed civilians and then killed them.”
Mr Zelenskyy fought back tears as he visited the town of Bucha where Mr Putin’s troops have been accused of butchering civilians and burying them in mass graves.
The Ukrainian leader, who was visibly emotional, was flanked by security as he walked through the town.
A 6-year-old boy stands near the grave of his mother, murdered by russian soldiers and then buried in her yard in Kyiv region.
— Defence of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 5, 2022
Photo by: Rodrigo Abd/AP#BuchaMassacre#stoprussiapic.twitter.com/ne6Jegsocf
He vowed to ensure that the “war crimes” committed by Russian soldiers on his country’s soil were “the last such evil on Earth”.
Mr Zelenskyy warned there could be even worse atrocities in other cities that were occupied by Russian forces.
“The occupiers will definitely bear responsibility for this,” he said.
It comes as senior Morrison government ministers condemned Mr Putin, accusing him of acting like a “war criminal” over “atrocious and appalling” actions in Ukraine.
Both Defence Minister Peter Dutton and Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne have called for Mr Putin to be investigated for war crimes over civilian killings in Ukraine, following the lead of US President Joe Biden.
Mr Dutton backed Mr Zelenskyy on Tuesday morning, describing Mr Putin as a “brutal autocrat”.
“The use of chemical weapons and the use of brutality against women and children doesn’t phase him,” Mr Dutton told Sunrise.
“When you’re seeing theatres bombed, when you’re seeing residential areas bombed and the potential of mass graves or executions, that is straight up and down the act of a war criminal that should be investigated as quickly as possible.
“The world needs to unite and become even stronger in the sanctions we’re applying against Russia.
Mr Zelenskyy wore a bulletproof vest as he toured the area of devastation with a security team.
He said: “Indeed, this is genocide. The elimination of the whole nation and the people.
“We are the citizens of Ukraine. We have more than 100 nationalities. This is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities.”
He stressed that “every crime of the occupiers on the territory of our state” would be investigated.
Vowing that war criminals would be brought to justice, he added: “Everyone guilty of such crimes will be entered in a special Book of Executioners … (they) will be found and punished.
“The world has seen many war crimes. The time has come to make the war crimes committed by Russian troops the last such evil on Earth.”
He added: “It’s very difficult to talk when you see what they’ve done here.
“The longer the Russian Federation drags out the meeting process, the worse it is for them and for this situation and for this war.
“We know of thousands of people killed and tortured, with severed limbs, raped women and murdered children.”
He said that in Bucha, and surrounding regions, “dead people have been found in barrels, basements, strangled, tortured”.
But despite the devastating human suffering, residents were chipping in to make sure homeless animals were fed.
Mr Zelenskyy said: “That’s a characteristic trait of our people, I think — treat animals the way you would treat humans.
“But you can see what was done to this modern town. That’s a characteristic of Russian soldiers — treat people worse than animals.
“That is real genocide, what you have seen here today.”
EU CONSIDERS OIL, COAL SANCTIONS
The European Union is considering hitting Russia with sanctions on oil or coal over the war in Ukraine, a top official said on Tuesday, though some countries remain worried of the potential economic fallout.
The EU and US are currently preparing more sanctions against Russia after allegations that Russian forces carried out war crimes, with dozens of bodies near Kyiv.
Meanwhile, it has been announced that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will travel to Ukraine alongside EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell.
Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer said in a tweet that the pair ““will travel to Kyiv this week to meet with President (Volodymyr) Zelensky ahead of the #StandUpForUkraine event in Warsaw on Saturday”.
The Europeans are under pressure to hit Moscow in the crucial energy sector and stop paying out the huge proceeds from gas, oil and coal that are helping Russia pay for the war.
“I don’t want to preview but indeed there are discussions on what can be done in an area of energy like coal and oil,” said EU executive vice president Valdis Dombrovskis as he arrived for EU minister talks in Luxembourg.
“Discussions about this are ongoing. As far as the European Commission is concerned, it’s definitely an option, he added.
The European Commission in Brussels draws up sanction decisions but adoption requires unanimity across the 27 member states.
So far countries deeply dependent on Russia for energy – such as Germany, Austria and Italy – have resisted expanding the measures to gas or oil and have fought off pleas to do so from Poland and the Baltic States, as well as the United States.
Germany on Monday said gas was still off limits for now, given its continued importance to the European economy, while on Tuesday Austria indicated that coal imports could be an option.
EU foreign ministers could adopt the latest package, either on the sidelines of NATO or G7 meetings happening Wednesday and Thursday, or at their regular meeting early next week.
Washington on Monday said more sanctions against Russia would be announced “this week”.
UKRAINIAN MOTHER UNCOVERS DAUGHTER’S GRAVE
Harrowing footage has shown a distraught Ukrainian mother uncovering her daughter’s shallow grave while aerial pictures reveal a mass burial site reportedly dug by Russians.
Mr Putin’s soldiers have been accused of genocide amid reports hundreds of civilians have been executed in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv, as shocking imagery exposes the horrific extent of the carnage.
Bucha resident Antonina Pomazanko’s daughter was shot dead by Russian soldiers on the first day of their occupation of the area when she went outside to look at a column of tanks, according to a report in The Sun.
The distraught mother was forced to put her body in a shallow grave outside their house in desperation.
In disturbing footage, Antonina can be seen showing Ukrainian troops her daughter’s grave as she helps them remove wooden boards balanced over the body.
Meanwhile, unsettling satellite pictures appear to show a 150-metre-long trench in the grounds of a church in Bucha.
“More recent coverage on March 31st shows the gravesite with an approximately 13-metre-long trench in the southwestern section of the area near the church,” private US space technology company Maxar said in a statement.
It came as reports emerged of Mr Putin’s butchers executing tied-up civilians and leaving bodies strewn on the street in Bucha.
The retreating forces are also said to have booby-trapped corpses and mined homes.
At least 20 bodies, some with their hands bound, were seen strewn across a single street on Sunday.
Ukrainian officials say 410 people have been found dead in towns near Kyiv so far – with at least 300 were killed in Bucha alone, and 57 discovered in one mass grave there.
Among those said to have been killed was a 14-year-old boy.
There have also been claims of rapes and the Kremlin’s soldiers “mutilating children”.
Bucha’s mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said “all these people were shot,” adding 280 other bodies had been buried in mass graves elsewhere in the town.
Boxing legend Wladimir Klitschko posted a Twitter video from Bucha that he said showed civilians “shot in the head with their hands tied behind their back”.
He said: “This is not a special military operation. This is genocide.”
In nearby Irpin, one report claimed Russian kill squads shot women and girls and then drove over them in tanks.
Moscow’s fighters also booby-trapped corpses, sources added.
Chechen forces controlled the area at the time, it is claimed.
BIDEN WANTS PUTIN TO BE TRIED FOR WAR CRIMES
US President Joe Biden said that Mr Putin should face trial for war crimes after horrifying images emerged over of the aftermath of civilian massacres carried out by Kremlin forces in Ukraine.
“You may remember I got criticised for calling Putin a war criminal,” Mr Biden told reporters on Monday local time in Washington DC, according to a report in the New York Post.
“Well, the truth of the matter, you saw what happened in Bucha. This warrants — he is a war criminal.”
“But we have to gather the information, we have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue the fight, and we have to gather all the detail so this can — we can actually have a war crimes trial,” Mr Biden said.
“This guy is brutal and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous, and everyone’s seen it,” added Mr Biden, who went on to say that his administration will continue to hit Russia with additional economic sanctions.
“I think of it as a war crime,” the US President repeated when pressed about the ghastly images of mass graves in the Kyiv suburb, adding that Putin “should be held accountable”.
It comes as US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced a push to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council over the horrendous attacks.
“In close co-ordination with Ukraine, European countries and other partners at the UN, we are going to seek Russia’s suspension from the UN Human Rights Council,” Ms Thomas-Greenfield told reporters in Bucharest, emphasising Washington’s belief that Russian troops have committed war crimes.
The United States and Britain announced plans on Monday to seek Russia’s suspension from the UN Human Rights Council following allegations that Russian troops systematically executed civilians in Bucha, Ukraine.
“The images out of Bucha and devastation across Ukraine require us to now match our words with action,” US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a tweet Monday.
“We cannot let a member state that is subverting every principle we hold dear to continue to participate” in the council, she said.
“Given strong evidence of war crimes, including reports of mass graves and heinous butchery in Bucha, Russia cannot remain a member of the UN Human Rights Council. Russia must be suspended,” said British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.
RUSSIA REACTS TO WORLD’S DISGUST
Moscow has called for a special UN Security Council meeting to address claims that Russian forces committed atrocities against Ukrainian civilians in Bucha, a town outside Kyiv.
“In the light of heinous provocation of Ukrainian radicals in #Bucha Russia requested a meeting of UN #SecurityCouncil on Monday April 4,” Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, said on Twitter.
Global outrage at accusations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine have mounted with the discovery of mass graves and corpses in streets near Kyiv, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy directly blamed leaders in Moscow for the “torture” and “killings” of civilians.
Britain, France, Germany, the United States, NATO and the United Nations all voiced horror and revulsion at the reports of civilians being murdered in Bucha, northwest of the capital, with the atrocities prompting vows of action at the International Criminal Court.
Russia denied the accusations and said Ukraine staged footage of the corpses.
A senior adviser to Ukrainian’s president Mykhailo Podolyak posted shocking images of dead bodies from Bucha to Twitter.
“Kyiv region. 21st century Hell,” he wrote.
“Bodies of men and women, who were killed with their hands tied. The worst crimes of Nazism have returned to the European Union.
“This was purposely done by Russia.”
Mr Zelenskyy said Russia’s leadership was responsible for civilian killings in Bucha.
He also vowed to investigate all Russian “crimes” in Ukraine, saying he had created a “special mechanism” to do so.
“I want all the leaders of the Russian Federation to see how their orders are being fulfilled. These kinds of orders. This kind of fulfilment. And there is a common responsibility. For these killings, for this torture, for arms blown off by blasts … For the shots in the back of the head,” Mr Zelenskyy said on Sunday, switching from Ukrainian to Russian, in a video address.
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson slammed Russia’s “despicable attacks” against Ukrainians and warned: “We will not rest until justice is done.”
French President Emmanuel Macron described the images as “unbearable” and said Russian authorities “must answer for these crimes”.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said light must be shed on the Russian army’s alleged “crimes” against civilians.
US and NATO leaders voiced shock and horror and warned that Russian troop movements away from Kyiv did not signal a withdrawal or end to the violence.
“You can’t help but see these images as a punch to the gut,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN.
“This is the reality of what’s going on every single day as long as Russia’s brutality against Ukraine continues,” Blinken said.
NATO Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said the killings of civilians in Bucha are “horrific.” “It is a brutality against civilians we haven’t seen in Europe for decades, and it’s horrific and it’s absolutely unacceptable,” Mr Stoltenberg told CNN.
Stoltenberg also said he was not “too optimistic” about Russia’s claim to be pulling troops away from Kyiv.
“What we see is not a withdrawal, but we see that Russia is repositioning its troops,” he told CNN.
“We should not in a way be too optimistic because the attacks will continue and we are also concerned about potential increased attacks,” Mr Stoltenberg said.
EU chief Charles Michel pledged further sanctions on Moscow.
“Shocked by haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army in Kyiv liberated region #BuchaMassacre,” said European Council head Michel on Twitter.
“EU is assisting Ukraine & NGO’s in gathering of necessary evidence for pursuit in international courts.”
British Foreign Minister Liz Truss said that as evidence mounted of “appalling acts”, Russia’s attacks on civilians must be investigated as “war crimes”
MASS GRAVES IN BUCHA
In the ravaged city of Bucha, just outside the Ukrainian capital, the bodies of nearly 300 civilians were found in mass graves after Russian troops withdrew.
AFP reporters saw at least 20 bodies, all in civilian clothing, strewn across a single street. One had his hands tied behind his back with a white cloth, and his Ukrainian passport left open beside his body.
“All these people were shot,” Bucha’s mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said, adding that 280 other bodies had been buried in mass graves in the town.
“These are the consequences of Russian occupation,” he said.
The International Criminal Court has already opened a probe into possible war crimes committed in Ukraine, and several Western leaders, including President Biden, have accused Mr Putin of being a “war criminal”.
Mr Zelenskyy has also alleged that Russian soldiers planted mines and other booby traps as they withdraw from northern Ukraine.
In a video address Saturday, he warned returning residents of trip-wires and other dangers.
“We are moving forward. Moving carefully and everyone who returns to this area must also be very careful,” he said.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to raise economic pressure on Russia, the Baltic States of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania announced Saturday that they had stopped all imports of Russian natural gas.
Pope Francis, on a visit to the Mediterranean island of Malta, issued a thinly veiled attack on Putin for ordering troops into Ukraine, and on Sunday made a plea for refugees fleeing the conflict to be welcomed.
The pontiff has not ruled out a visit to Kyiv.
RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS HIT IN KHARKIV
Seven people died and 34 were wounded after Russian forces struck a residential area in Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv on Sunday, local prosecutors said in a statement.
“On April 3 at around 6:00pm local time, Russian invaders fired on residential buildings in the Sloboda districts of Kharkiv. As a result, around ten houses and a trolleybus depot were damaged. According to preliminary information, seven people died, 34 were injured, including three children,” Kharkiv’s regional prosecutor’s office said on Telegram.
EXPLOSIONS ROCK ODESSA
Explosions have rocked the strategic Ukrainian port city of Odessa as a top UN official has headed to Moscow to try to secure a humanitarian ceasefire, after evidence emerged of possible civilian killings around Kyiv.
Thick plumes of black smoke rose from several areas on the historic Black Sea port, after air strikes shook the city but the Ukrainian army said no one was killed.
Russia’s defence ministry confirmed the attack, saying “high-precision sea and air-based missiles destroyed an oil refinery and three storage facilities for fuel and lubricants”.
The ministry claimed the targets were supplying fuel to Ukrainian troops.
Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister, said: “Fires were reported in some areas. Some of the missiles were shot down by air defence.”
Despite the rocket attacks, there were no casualties, said officer Vladislav Nazarov in a statement from the southern regional command.
“The Odessa region is one of the enemy’s priority targets. The enemy is pursuing the sly tactic of attacking sensitive infrastructure,” he said.
The city authorities had earlier said the attack caused several fires and some missiles had been shot down by Ukraine’s air defence systems.
Mr Zelenskyy had previously warned Russia was consolidating and preparing “powerful strikes” in the south, joining a chorus of Western assessments that Moscow’s troops were regrouping.
Odessa, a historic city of around one million people, is Ukraine’s largest Black Sea port and has escaped the worst of the fighting.
Ukraine’s whole eastern flank from Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014, to the pro-Moscow enclaves of Donetsk and Lugansk in the Donbas region is occupied by Russian forces, with the exception of the besieged city of Mariupol.
UN chief Antonio Guterres’ humanitarian envoy Martin Griffiths was meanwhile seeking a halt in the fighting, which Ukraine estimates has left 20,000 people dead, and forced more than 10 million to flee for their lives.
He will fly on to Kyiv from Moscow. Both Russia and Ukraine have agreed to meet him, Mr Guterres said.
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