Russian Defence Ministry has called this a staged operation by the Ukrainian authorities….reports Asian Lite News
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged on Sunday to conduct an independent probe of the killing of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha near Kyiv.
“I am deeply shocked by the images of civilians killed in Bucha, Ukraine. It is essential that an independent investigation leads to effective accountability,” Guterres tweeted.
Russian Defence Ministry has called this a staged operation by the Ukrainian authorities.
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On the other hand, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy termed this incident as “genocide.”
When asked during an appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” program if Russia is carrying out genocide in Ukraine, Zelensky replied: “Indeed. This is genocide”
On Sunday, the media reports emerged with footage allegedly taken in the town of Bucha near Kyiv, with a number of bodies of dead people lying on the road.
An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Russian troops accused of massacring, torturing and brutalising hundreds of Ukrainian civilians in the outskirts of Kiev may have committed even worse atrocities in villages and towns further from the capital.
At least 410 innocent civilians were slaughtered in the cities of Bucha and Irpin to the west of Kiev, Ukraine has said, with bodies discovered littering roads and basements, and piled into hastily-dug mass graves as Russian troops fled the region at the weekend, leaving evidence of their crimes behind, Daily Mail reported.
Journalists based in Kiev who have visited the region since Russian forces withdrew say “clear evidence” of war crimes has been uncovered, including civilians shot with their hands bound behind their backs and other bodies that bear the marks of torture and rape.
But Tymofiy Mylovanov, the adviser to President Zelensky and Ukraine’s former Finance Minister, says even worse atrocities may have been perpetrated to the east of Kiev in the suburb of Brovary and in villages along the highway to Chernihiv, a city near the Russian border, and has called on journalists and lawyers to go to the region to help document what has happened.
Mylovanov said early eyewitness accounts and anecdotal evidence suggest children may have been burned alive, young women raped en-masse and then executed afterwards, and people forced to eat their pets after being deliberately starved by Russian troops.
Others may have been shot dead as they planted crops in the fields or killed in their gardens, he said.
Bodies of civilians, their hands bound and bullet wounds in the back of their heads, littered the streets of the small commuter town north of Kiev.
Survivors emerging from basements after weeks underground told of summary executions, sexual violence and terror not seen since Joseph Stalin’s Soviet rule of terror in the 1930s, reports the Daily Mail.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed all photos and footage allegedly evidencing the Russian troops’ crimes in Bucha represent another provocation as all Russian units completely withdrew from the town as early as March 30.
Russian First Deputy Envoy to UN Dmitry Polyansky said on Sunday that Moscow has requested a UN Security Council meeting for Monday, claiming the “provocation of Ukrainian radicals” in Bucha.
“In light of the blatant provocation by Ukrainian radicals in Bucha, Russia has demanded a UN Security Council meeting be convened on Monday afternoon, April 4,” Polyansky was quoted as saying by Sputnik.
Moscow will expose “the Ukrainian instigators and their Western patrons,” he added.
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