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Ukraine girds for renewed Russian offensive on eastern front
Ukraine braced for a climactic battle for control of the besieged country's industrial east after Russian forces withdrew from the shattered outskirts of Kyiv to regroup and intensify their offensive across the Donbas region, where authorities urged people to evacuate before time runs out.
The mayor of the southern port city of Mariupol said Wednesday that more than 5,000 civilians had been killed there. Meanwhile, in areas north of the capital, Ukrainian officials gathered evidence of Russian atrocities amid signs Moscow’s troops killed people indiscriminately before retreating over the past several days.
In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that the Russian military is building up its forces for a new offensive in the east, where the Kremlin has said its goal is to “liberate” the Donbas, Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial heartland. Ukraine, too, was preparing for battle, he said.
“We will fight and we will not retreat,” he said. “We will seek all possible options to defend ourselves until Russia begins to seriously seek peace. This is our land. This is our future. And we won’t give them up.”
Ukrainian authorities urged people living in the Donbas to evacuate immediately.
Also read:Ukrainian refugees find route to US goes through Mexico
“Later, people will come under fire,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, “and we won’t be able to do anything to help them.”
A U.S. defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said Russia had completed pulling out all of its estimated 24,000 or more troops from the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas in the north, sending them into Belarus or Russia to resupply and reorganize, probably to return to fight in the east.
But a Western official, also speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence estimates, said it will take Russia’s battle-damaged forces as much as a month to regroup for a major push on eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and its Western allies have moved to impose new sanctions against the Kremlin over killings they labeled as war crimes.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said that of the more than 5,000 civilians killed during weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting, 210 were children. Russian forces bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death, he said.
Boichenko said more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure was destroyed. The attacks on the strategic city on the Sea of Azov have cut off food, water, fuel and medicine and pulverized homes and businesses.
British defense officials said 160,000 people remained trapped in the city, which had a prewar population of 430,000. A humanitarian relief convoy accompanied by the Red Cross has been trying for days without success to get into the city.
Capturing Mariupol would allow Russia to secure a continuous land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
In the north, Ukrainian authorities said the bodies of least 410 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv, victims of what Zelenskyy has portrayed as a Russian campaign of murder, rape, dismemberment and torture. Some victims had apparently been shot at close range. Some were found with their hands bound.
In his address Wednesday night, Zelenskyy accused Russia of interfering with an international investigation into possible war crimes by removing corpses and trying to hide other evidence in Bucha, northeast of Kyiv.
“We have information that the Russian troops have changed tactics and are trying to remove the dead people, the dead Ukrainians, from the streets and cellars of territory they occupied,” he said. “This is only an attempt to hide the evidence and nothing more.”
Switching from Ukrainian to Russian, Zelenskyy urged ordinary Russians “to somehow confront the Russian repressive machine” instead of being “equated with the Nazis for the rest of your life.”
Also read:Mariupol’s dead put at 5,000 as Ukraine braces in the east
He called on Russians to demand an end to the war, “if you have even a little shame about what the Russian military is doing in Ukraine.”
In reaction to the alleged atrocities outside Kyiv, the U.S. announced sanctions against Putin's two adult daughters and said it is toughening penalties against Russian banks. Britain banned investment in Russia and pledged to end its dependence on Russian coal and oil by the end of the year.
The U.S. Senate planned to take up legislation Thursday to end normal trade relations with Russia and to codify President Joe Biden’s executive action banning imports of Russian oil. The trade suspension would allow Biden to enact higher tariffs on certain Russian imports.
The European Union is also expected to take additional punitive measures, including an embargo on coal.
The Kremlin has insisted its troops have committed no war crimes and alleged the images out of Bucha were staged by the Ukrainians.
More bodies were yet to be collected in Bucha. The Associated Press saw two in a house in a silent neighborhood. From time to time there was the muffled boom of workers clearing the town of mines and other unexploded ordnance.
Workers at a cemetery began to load more than 60 bodies into a grocery shipping truck for transport to a facility for further investigation.
Police said they found at least 20 bodies in the Makariv area west of Kyiv. In the village of Andriivka, residents said the Russians arrived in early March and took locals’ phones. Some people were detained, then released. Others met unknown fates. Some described sheltering for weeks in cellars normally used for storing vegetables.
“First we were scared, now we are hysterical,” said Valentyna Klymenko, 64. She said she, her husband and two neighbors weathered the siege by sleeping on stacks of potatoes covered with a mattress and blankets. “We didn’t cry at first. Now we are crying.”
To the north of the village, in the town of Borodyanka, rescue workers searched through the rubble of apartment blocks, looking for bodies.
Thwarted in their efforts to swiftly take the capital, increasing numbers of Putin’s troops, along with mercenaries, have been reported moving into the Donbas.
Ukrainian forces have been fighting Russia-backed separatists in the Donbas since 2014. Ahead of its Feb. 24 invasion, Moscow recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk regions as independent states.
The United States and the United Kingdom boycotted an informal meeting Wednesday of the U.N. Security Council called by Russia to press its baseless claims that the U.S. has biological warfare laboratories in Ukraine. The meeting was the latest of several moves by Russia that have led Western countries to accuse Moscow of using the U.N. as a platform for disinformation to divert attention from the war.
Russia's allegations have previously been debunked. Ukraine does own and operate a network of biological labs that have received funding and research support from the U.S. and are not a secret. The labs are part of a program that aims to reduce the likelihood of deadly outbreaks, whether natural or manufactured.
The U.S. efforts date to work in the 1990s to dismantle the former Soviet Union’s program for weapons of mass destruction.
Ukrainian refugees find route to US goes through Mexico
Hundreds of Ukrainian refugees arriving daily have a message for family and friends in Europe: the fastest route to settle in the United States is booking a flight to Mexico.
A loose volunteer coalition, largely from Slavic churches in the western United States, is guiding hundreds of refugees daily from the airport in the Mexican border city of Tijuana to hotels, churches and shelters, where they wait two to four days for U.S officials to admit them on humanitarian parole. In less than two weeks, volunteers worked with U.S. and Mexican officials to build a remarkably efficient and expanding network to provide food, security, transportation, and shelter.
The volunteers, who wear blue and yellow badges to represent the Ukrainian flag but have no group name or leader, started a waiting list on notepads and later switched to a mobile app normally used to track church attendance. Ukrainians are told to report to a U.S. border crossing as their numbers approach, a system that organizers liken to waiting for a restaurant table.
“We feel so lucky, so blessed,” said Tatiana Bondarenko, who traveled through Moldova, Romania, Austria and Mexico before arriving Tuesday in San Diego with her husband and children, ages 8, 12, and 15. Her final destination was Sacramento, California, to live with her mother, who she hadn’t seen in 15 years.
Also read:Mariupol’s dead put at 5,000 as Ukraine braces in the east
Another Ukrainian family posed nearby for photos under a U.S. Customs and Border Protection sign at San Diego's San Ysidro port of entry, the busiest crossing between the U.S. and Mexico. Volunteers under a blue canopy offered snacks while refugees waited for family to pick them up or for buses to take them to a nearby church.
At the Tijuana airport, weary travelers who enter Mexico as tourists in Mexico City or Cancun are directed to a makeshift lounge in the terminal with a sign in black marker that reads, “Only for Ukrainian Refugees.” It is the only place to register to enter the U.S.
About 200 to 300 Ukrainians were being admitted daily at the San Ysidro crossing this week, with hundreds more arriving in Tijuana, according to volunteers who manage the waiting list. There were 973 families or single adults waiting on Tuesday.
U.S officials told volunteers they aim to admit about 550 Ukrainians daily as processing moves to a nearby crossing that is temporarily closed to the public. CBP didn't provide numbers in response to questions about operations and plans, saying only that it has expanded facilities in San Diego to deal with humanitarian cases.
“We realized we had a problem that the government wasn’t going to solve, so we solved it,” said Phil Metzger, pastor of Calvary Church in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista, where about 75 members host Ukrainian families and another 100 refugees sleep on air mattresses and pews.
Metzger, whose pastoral work has taken him to Ukraine and Hungary, calls the operation "duct tape and glue” but refugees prefer it to overwhelmed European countries, where millions of Ukrainians have settled.
The Biden administration has said it will accept up to 100,000 Ukrainians but Mexico is the only route producing big numbers. Appointments at U.S. consulates in Europe are scarce, and refugee resettlement takes time.
The administration set a refugee resettlement cap of 125,000 in the 12-month period that ends Sept. 30 but accepted only 8,758 by March 31, including 704 Ukrainians. In the previous year, it capped refugee resettlement at 62,500 but took only 11,411, including 803 Ukrainians.
The administration paroled more than 76,000 Afghans through U.S. airports in response to the departure of American troops last year, but nothing similar is afoot for Ukrainians.
Oskana Dugnyk, 36, hesitated to leave her home in Bucha but acquiesced to her husband's wishes before Russian troops invaded the town and left behind streets strewn with corpses. The couple worried about violence in Mexico with three young children but the robust presence of volunteers in Tijuana reassured them and a friend in Ohio agreed to host them.
Also read: Killing of Ukrainian civilians could bring new sanctions
“So far, so good,” Dugnyk said a day after arriving at a Tijuana gymnasium that the city government opened for about 400 Ukrainians to sleep on a basketball court. “We have food. We have a place to stay. We hope everything will be fine.”
Alerted by text message or social media, Ukrainians are summoned to a grassy hill and bus shelter near the border crossing hours before their numbers are called. The city government opened the bus shelter to protect Ukrainians from torrential rain.
Angelina Mykyta, a college student in Kyiv, acknowledged nerves as her number neared. She fled to Warsaw after the invasion but decided to take a chance on the United States because she wanted to settle with a pastor she knows in Kalispell, Montana.
“I think we'll be OK,” she said while waiting to be escorted from the camp of hundreds of Ukrainians to their final stop in Mexico — a small area with a few dozen folding chairs within earshot of U.S. officials. Some refuse to drink at the final stop, fearing they will have to go to the bathroom and miss their turn.
Lulls end when CBP officers approach: "We need a family." “Give me three more.” “Singles, we need singles.” A volunteer ensures orderly movement.
The arrival of Ukrainians comes as the Biden administration prepares for much larger numbers when pandemic-related asylum limits for all nationalities end May 23. Since March 2020, the U.S. has used Title 42 authority, named for a 1944 public health law, to suspend rights to seek asylum under U.S. law and international treaty.
Metzger, the Chula Vista pastor, said his church cannot long continue its 24-hour-a-day pace helping refugees, and suspects U.S. authorities will not adopt what volunteers have done.
“If you make something go smooth, then everybody's going to come,” he said. “We're making it so easy. Eventually I'm sure they'll say, ‘No, we’re done.'”
Greece declares 12 Russian diplomats unwelcome
The Greek Foreign Ministry on Wednesday announced that 12 members of the Russian diplomatic and consular missions in Greece have been declared as personae non gratae.
Also Read: Greece: Search continues for 12 missing in ferry fire
The decision was made in accordance with the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the ministry said in a statement, adding that the Russian ambassador had been earlier notified of the decision.
The statement didn't reveal any specific time schedule about the diplomats' departure.
Also Read: Greece to take 4,000 Bangladeshi workers every year: MoU
Mariupol’s dead put at 5,000 as Ukraine braces in the east
The mayor of the besieged port city of Mariupol put the number of civilians killed there at more than 5,000 Wednesday, as Ukraine collected evidence of Russian atrocities on the ruined outskirts of Kyiv and braced for what could become a climactic battle for control of the country’s industrial east.
Ukrainian authorities continued gathering up the dead in shattered towns outside the capital amid telltale signs Moscow’s troops killed civilians indiscriminately before retreating over the past several days.
In other developments, the U.S. and its Western allies moved to impose new sanctions against the Kremlin over what they branded war crimes.
And Russia completed the pullout of all of its estimated 24,000 or more troops from the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas in the north, sending them into Belarus or Russia to resupply and reorganize, probably to return to the fight in the east, a U.S. defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said.
In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that the Russian military continues to build up its forces in preparation for the new offensive in the east, where the Kremlin has said its goal is to “liberate” the Donbas, Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial heartland. He said Ukraine, too, was preparing for battle.
“We will fight and we will not retreat,” he said. “We will seek all possible options to defend ourselves until Russia begins to seriously seek peace. This is our land. This is our future. And we won’t give them up.”
Ukrainian authorities urged people living in the Donbas to evacuate now, ahead of an impending Russian offensive, while there is still time.
“Later, people will come under fire,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, “and we won’t be able to do anything to help them.”
Also Read: Killing of Ukrainian civilians could bring new sanctions
A Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence estimates, said it will take Russia’s battle-damaged forces as much as a month to regroup for a major push on eastern Ukraine.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said that of the more than 5,000 civilians killed during weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting, 210 were children. He said Russian forces bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death.
Boichenko said more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed. The attacks on the strategic southern city on the Sea of Azov have cut off food, water, fuel and medicine and pulverized homes and businesses.
British defense officials said 160,000 people remained trapped in the city, which had a prewar population of 430,000. A humanitarian relief convoy accompanied by the Red Cross has been trying for days without success to get into the city.
Capturing Mariupol would allow Russia to secure a continuous land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
In the north, Ukrainian authorities said the bodies of least 410 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv, victims of what Zelenskyy has portrayed as a Russian campaign of murder, rape, dismemberment and torture. Some victims had apparently been shot at close range. Some were found with their hands bound.
At a cemetery in the town of Bucha, northeast of Kyiv, workers began to load more than 60 bodies apparently collected over the past few days into a grocery shipping truck for transport to a facility for further investigation.
Zelenskyy accused Russia of interfering with an international investigation into possible war crimes by removing corpses and trying to hide other evidence in Bucha.
“We have information that the Russian troops have changed tactics and are trying to remove the dead people, the dead Ukrainians, from the streets and cellars of territory they occupied,” he said in his address. “This is only an attempt to hide the evidence and nothing more.”
Switching from Ukrainian into Russian, Zelenskyy urged ordinary Russians “to somehow confront the Russian repressive machine” instead of being “equated with the Nazis for the rest of your life.”
He called on Russians to demand an end to the war, “if you have even a little shame about what the Russian military is doing in Ukraine.”
More bodies were yet to be collected in Bucha. The Associated Press saw two in a house in a silent neighborhood. From time to time there was the muffled boom of workers clearing the town of mines and other unexploded ordnance.
Police said they found at least 20 bodies in the Makariv area west of Kyiv. In the village of Andriivka, residents said the Russians arrived in early March and took locals’ phones. Some people were detained, then released. Others met unknown fates. Some described sheltering for weeks in cellars normally used for storing vegetables for winter.
The soldiers were gone, and Russian armored personnel carriers, a tank and other vehicles sat destroyed on both ends of the road running through the village. Several buildings were reduced to mounds of bricks and corrugated metal. Residents struggled without heat, electricity or cooking gas.
“First we were scared, now we are hysterical,” said Valentyna Klymenko, 64. She said she, her husband and two neighbors weathered the siege by sleeping on stacks of potatoes covered with a mattress and blankets. “We didn’t cry at first. Now we are crying.”
To the north of the village, in the town of Borodyanka, rescue workers combed through the rubble of apartment blocks, looking for bodies. Mine-disposal units worked nearby.
The Kremlin has insisted its troops have committed no war crimes, charging that the images out of Bucha were staged by the Ukrainians.
Thwarted in their efforts to swiftly take the capital, increasing numbers of President Vladimir Putin’s troops, along with mercenaries, have been reported moving into the Donbas.
At least five people were killed by Russian shelling Wednesday in the Donbas’ Donetsk region, according to Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko, who urged civilians to leave for safer areas.
In the Luhansk region of the Donbas, Russian bombardment set fire to at least 10 multi-story buildings and a mall in the town of Sievierodonetsk, the regional governor reported. There was no immediate word on deaths or injuries.
Also Read: US Oks $100m transfer of missiles to Ukraine
Russian forces also attacked a fuel depot and a factory in the Dnipropetrovsk region, just west of the Donbas, authorities said.
Ukrainian forces have been fighting Russia-backed separatists in the Donbas since 2014. Ahead of its Feb. 24 invasion, Moscow recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk regions as independent states.
In reaction to the alleged atrocities outside Kyiv, the U.S. announced sanctions against Putin’s two adult daughters and said it is toughening penalties against Russian banks. Britain banned investment in Russia and pledged to end its dependence on Russian coal and oil by the end of the year.
The European Union is also expected to take additional punitive measures, including an embargo on coal.
Meanwhile, the United States and the United Kingdom boycotted an informal meeting of the Security Council called by Russia to press its baseless claims that the U.S. has biological warfare laboratories in Ukraine.
The meeting was the latest of several moves by Russia that have led Western countries to accuse Moscow of using the U.N. as a platform for disinformation to divert attention from the war.
Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Dmitry Polyansky, who presided over the meeting, asserted that Ukraine, supported by the U.S., was implementing what he claimed were dangerous projects and experiments as part of a military biological program.
The allegations have previously been debunked. Ukraine does own and operate a network of biological labs that have received funding and research support from the U.S. and are not a secret. The labs are part of a program that aims to reduce the likelihood of deadly outbreaks, whether natural or man-made.
The U.S. efforts date back to work in the 1990s to dismantle the former Soviet Union’s program for weapons of mass destruction.
More UK Easter flights disrupted amid COVID staff absences
British travelers faced more disruptions during the Easter holiday break as two major airlines, British Airways and easyJet, canceled about 100 flights Wednesday.
British Airways canceled two flights because of coronavirus-related staff absences, on top of more than 70 flights that it had canceled in advance as part of adjustments to its schedule. Budget carrier easyJet scrubbed at least 30 flights to or from London's Gatwick airport.
The aviation industry is suffering from staff shortages because of both a surge in coronavirus-related staff sickness in the U.K. and a shortage of workers because of pandemic-related job cuts.
British Airways and easyJet have canceled hundreds of flights since the weekend, which marked the start of a two-week Easter school holiday break.
EasyJet said it will operate most of its 1,545 flights planned for Wednesday, with a “small proportion" canceled in advance to give customers enough time to book new ones.
The airline says the number of crew illnesses are at more than double normal levels because of high COVID-19 infection rates across Europe.
British Airways said many of its cancellations include flights that were cut when it decided last month to reduce its schedule until the end of May to boost reliability amid rising COVID-19 cases.
READ: After 2 years, India resumes int'l flights
Infections across the U.K. have soared again with the rapid spread of the more transmissible omicron BA.2 variant, reaching record levels last week when official figures showed that some 1 in 13 people had the virus.
The Easter school holidays are the first time many families in Britain have booked trips abroad after two years of pandemic restrictions. All remaining virus measures, including mandatory self-isolation for those infected and testing requirements for international travel, were scrapped in February and March.
Killing of Ukrainian civilians could bring new sanctions
Police and other investigators walked the silent streets of ruined towns around Ukraine’s capital, documenting widespread killings of unarmed civilians and other alleged war crimes by Russian forces that could draw tough new Western sanctions as soon as Wednesday.
While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy kept up demands for war-crimes trials for Russian troops and their leaders, he and others increasingly warn that the Russians are regrouping for a new assault on Ukraine’s east and south.
So far, Ukrainian forces are holding back Russian troops trying to push into the country’s east, but they remain outnumbered in both troops and equipment, Zelenskyy said in a video address to his country late Tuesday.
“But we don’t have a choice — the fate of our land and of our people is being decided,” he said. “We know what we are fighting for. And we will do everything to win.”
Over the past few days, a global outcry erupted over grisly images of what appeared to be intentional killings of civilians in Bucha and other towns before Russian forces withdrew from the outskirts of Kyiv. The evidence has led Western nations to expel scores of Moscow’s diplomats and propose further sanctions.
The U.S., in coordination with the European Union and Group of Seven big economies, is expected to roll out more sanctions Wednesday, including a ban on all new investment in Russia, a senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the upcoming announcement.
Also, the EU’s executive branch proposed a ban on coal imports from Russia. It would be the first time the 27-nation bloc has sanctioned the country’s lucrative energy industry over the war. The coal imports amount to an estimated 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion) per year.
Zelenskyy spoke by video Tuesday to the U.N. Security Council about the suspected executions in the 6-week-old invasion that has seen countless other civilians killed by Russian shelling and airstrikes on cities and towns.
He said civilians in towns around Kyiv had been tortured, shot in the back of the head, thrown down wells, blown up with grenades in their apartments and crushed to death by tanks while in cars.
Zelenskyy said that both those who carried out the killings and those who gave the orders “must be brought to justice immediately for war crimes” in front of a tribunal similar to the one established at Nuremberg after World War II.
Moscow’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said that while Bucha was under Russian control, “not a single local person has suffered from any violent action.” Reiterating what the Kremlin has contended for days, he said that video footage of bodies in the streets was “a crude forgery” staged by the Ukrainians.
Read: Zelenskyy at the UN accuses Russian military of war crimes
“You only saw what they showed you,” he said. “The only ones who would fall for this are Western dilettantes.”
As Zelenskyy spoke to the diplomats, survivors of the monthlong Russian occupation showed investigators bodies of townspeople allegedly shot by Russian troops.
Police and other investigators walked the still largely empty streets of Bucha, where dogs wandered among ruined buildings and burned military vehicles. Officials snapped photos of the corpses before gathering up some of them.
Survivors who hid in their homes during the occupation, many of them beyond middle age, wandered past charred tanks and jagged window panes with plastic bags of food and other humanitarian aid. Red Cross workers checked in on intact homes.
Associated Press journalists in Bucha have counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes and interviewed Ukrainians who told of witnessing atrocities. Also, 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 dead in Bucha included a pile of six charred bodies, as witnessed by AP journalists. It was not clear who they were or under what circumstances they died. One body was probably that of a child, said Andrii Nebytov, head of police in the Kyiv region.
Many of the dead seen by AP journalists appeared to have been shot at close range, and some had their hands bound or their flesh burned.
The AP and the PBS series “Frontline” have jointly verified at least 90 incidents during the war that appear to violate international law. The War Crimes Watch Ukraine project is looking into apparent targeted attacks as well as indiscriminate ones.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the images from Bucha revealed “not the random act of a rogue unit” but “a deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities.” He said the reports of atrocities were “more than credible.”
“Only non-humans are capable of this,” said Angelica Chernomor, a refugee from Kyiv who crossed into Poland with her two children and saw the photos from Bucha. “Even if people live under a totalitarian regime, they must retain feelings, dignity, but they do not.”
Chernomor is among the more than 4 million Ukrainians who have fled the country in the wake of the Feb. 24 invasion.
Russia has rejected similar accusations of atrocities in the past by accusing its enemies of forging photos and video and using so-called crisis actors.
The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court at The Hague opened an investigation a month ago into possible war crimes in Ukraine.
Read: US Oks $100m transfer of missiles to Ukraine
Elsewhere in Ukraine, in Borodyanka, northwest of Kyiv, a 25-year-old, Dmitriy Yevtushkov, searched the rubble of apartment buildings and found that only a photo album remained from his family’s home.
In the besieged southern city of Mykolaiv, a passerby stopped briefly to look at the bright blossoms of a shattered flower stand lying among bloodstains, the legacy of a Russian shell that killed nine in the
center of the city earlier this week. The onlooker sketched out the sign of the cross in the air, and moved on.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, meanwhile, warned that in pulling back from the capital, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military is regrouping its forces in order to deploy them to eastern and southern Ukraine for a “crucial phase of the war.” Russia’s stated goal currently is control of the Donbas, the largely Russian-speaking industrial region in the east that includes the shattered port city of Mariupol.
“Moscow is not giving up its ambitions in Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said.
While both Ukrainian and Russian representatives sent optimistic signals following their latest round of talks a week ago, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow will not accept a Ukrainian demand that a prospective peace deal include an immediate pullout of troops followed by a Ukrainian referendum on the agreement.
US oks $100m transfer of missiles to Ukraine
President Joe Biden approved a $100 million transfer of Javelin anti-armor missiles to Ukraine on Tuesday, according to an administration official.
The transfer brings the total of U.S. military assistance for Ukraine to $2.4 billion since Biden took office last January.
Also Read: White House: US, allies to ban new investments in Russia
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.
The official spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter.
Also Read: Zelenskyy at the UN accuses Russian military of war crimes
Zelenskyy at the UN accuses Russian military of war crimes
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the Russians of gruesome atrocities in Ukraine and told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that those responsible should immediately be brought up on war crimes charges in front of a tribunal like the one established at Nuremberg after World War II.
Over the past few days, grisly images of what appeared to be intentional killings of civilians carried out by Russian forces in Bucha and other towns before they withdrew from the outskirts of Kyiv have caused a global outcry and led Western nations to expel scores of Moscow’s diplomats and propose further sanctions, including a ban on coal imports from Russia.
Zelenskyy, speaking via video from Ukraine to U.N. diplomats, said that civilians had been tortured, shot in the back of the head, thrown down wells, blown up with grenades in their apartments and crushed to death by tanks while in cars.
“They cut off limbs, cut their throats. Women were raped and killed in front of their children,” he said. He asserted that people’s tongues were pulled out “only because their aggressor did not hear what they wanted to hear from them.”
Zelenskyy said that both those who carried out the killings and those who gave the orders “must be brought to justice immediately for war crimes” in front of a tribunal similar to what was used in postwar Germany.
Read: Ukraine says Russia preparing offensive in southeast
Moscow’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said that while Bucha was under Russian control, “not a single local person has suffered from any violent action.” Reiterating what the Kremlin has contended for days, he said that video footage of bodies in the streets was “a crude forgery” staged by the Ukrainians.
“You only saw what they showed you,” he said. “The only ones who would fall for this are Western dilettantes.”
As Zelenskyy spoke to the diplomats, survivors of the monthlong Russian occupation took investigators to body after body of townspeople allegedly shot down by troops. Others simply surveyed the destruction.
In Borodyanka, northwest of Kyiv, 25-year-old, Dmitriy Yevtushkov searched the rubble of apartment buildings and found that only a photo album remained from his family’s home. In the besieged southern city of Mykolaiv, a passerby stopped briefly to look at the bright blossoms of a shattered flower stand lying among bloodstains, the legacy of a Russian shell that killed nine. The onlooker sketched out the sign of the cross in the air, and moved on.
Associated Press journalists in Bucha have counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes and interviewed Ukrainians who told of witnessing atrocities. Also, 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.
Ukraine says Russia preparing offensive in southeast
Russian forces on Tuesday were preparing for an offensive in Ukraine’s southeast, the Ukrainian military said, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared to talk to the U.N. Security Council amid outrage over evidence Moscow’s soldiers deliberately killed civilians.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government is pouring soldiers into Ukraine’s east to gain control of the industrial heartland known as the Donbas. That follows a Russian withdrawal from towns around the capital, Kyiv, which led to the discovery of corpses, prompting accusations of war crimes and demands for tougher sanctions on Moscow.
Russian forces are focused on seizing the cities of Popasna and Rubizhne in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the Black Sea port of Mariupol, the General Staff said on its Facebook page. Donetsk and Luhansk are controlled by Russian-backed separatists and recognized by Moscow as independent states. The General Staff said access to Kharkiv in the east, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was blocked.
Zelenskyy, speaking from Ukraine, planned to address Security Council diplomats Tuesday amid demands for an investigation of possible war crimes.
Germany and France reacted by expelling dozens of Russian diplomats, suggesting they were spies. President Joe Biden said Putin should be tried for war crimes.
“This guy is brutal, and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous,” Biden said, referring to the town northwest of the capital that was the scene of some of the horrors.
Before Zelenskyy speaks, the most powerful U.N. body is due to be briefed by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres; his political chief, Rosemary DiCarlo; and U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, who is trying to arrange a cease-fire. Griffiths met with Russian officials in Moscow on Monday and is due to visit Ukraine.
Associated Press journalists in Bucha counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes and apparently without weapons, many shot at close range, and some with their hands bound or their flesh burned.
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After touring neighborhoods of Bucha and speaking to hungry survivors lining up for bread, Zelenskyy pledged in a video address that Ukraine would work with the European Union and the International Criminal Court to identify Russian fighters involved in any atrocities.
“The time will come when every Russian will learn the whole truth about who among their fellow citizens killed, who gave orders, who turned a blind eye to the murders,” he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the scenes outside Kyiv as a “stage-managed anti-Russian provocation.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the images contained “signs of video forgery and various fakes.”
Russia has rejected previous allegations of atrocities as fabrications by Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials said the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv that were recaptured from Russian forces.
The Ukrainian prosecutor-general’s office described one room discovered in Bucha as a “torture chamber.” In a statement, it said the bodies of five men with their hands bound were found in the basement of a children’s sanatorium where civilians were tortured and killed.
The bodies seen by AP journalists in Bucha included at least 13 in and around a building that local people said Russian troops used as a base. Three other bodies were found in a stairwell, and a group of six were burned together.
The dead witnessed by the news agency’s journalists also included bodies wrapped in black plastic, piled on one end of a mass grave in a Bucha churchyard. Many of those victims had been shot in cars or killed in explosions trying to flee the city. With the morgue full and the cemetery impossible to reach, the churchyard was the only place to keep the dead, Father Andrii Galavin said.
Tanya Nedashkivs’ka said she buried her husband in a garden outside their apartment building after he was detained by Russian troops. His body was one of those left heaped in a stairwell.
“Please, I am begging you, do something!” she said. “It’s me talking, a Ukrainian woman, a Ukrainian woman, a mother of two kids and one grandchild. For all the wives and mothers, make peace on Earth so no one ever grieves again.”
Another Bucha resident, Volodymyr Pilhutskyi, said his neighbor Pavlo Vlasenko was taken away by Russian soldiers because the military-style pants he was wearing and the uniforms that Vlasenko said belonged to his security guard son appeared suspicious. When Vlasenko’s body was later found, it had burn marks from a flamethrower, his neighbor said.
Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, insisted Monday at a news conference that during the time that Bucha was under Russian control, “not a single local person has suffered from any violent action.”
However, high-resolution satellite imagery by commercial provider Maxar Technologies showed that many of the bodies have been lying in the open for weeks, during the time that Russian forces were in Bucha. The New York Times first reported on the satellite images showing the dead.
Western and Ukrainian leaders have accused Russia of war crimes before. The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor has already opened an investigation. But the latest reports ratcheted up the condemnation.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the images from Bucha reveal the “unbelievable brutality of the Russian leadership and those who follow its propaganda.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said there is “clear evidence of war crimes” in Bucha that demand new punitive measures.
“I’m in favor of a new round of sanctions and in particular on coal and gasoline. We need to act,” he said on France-Inter radio.
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Though united in outrage, the European allies appeared split on how to respond. While Poland urged Europe to quickly wean itself off Russian energy, Germany said it would stick with a gradual approach of phasing out coal and oil imports over the next several months.
Russia withdrew many of its forces from the area around Kyiv after being thwarted in its bid to swiftly capture the capital. It has instead poured troops into southeastern Ukraine.
About two-thirds of the Russian troops around Kyiv have left and are either in Belarus or on their way there, probably getting more supplies and reinforcements, said a senior U.S. defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an intelligence assessment.
More than 1,500 civilians were able to escape Mariupol on Monday, using the dwindling number of private vehicles available to leave, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said. The besieged southern port city has seen some of the heaviest fighting of the war.
But amid the fighting, a Red Cross-accompanied convoy of buses that has been thwarted for days on end in a bid to deliver supplies and evacuate residents was again unable to get inside the city, Vereshchuk said.
Elsewhere, Russian shelling killed 11 people in the southern city of Mykolaiv, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said in a video message on social media.
Zelenskyy appealed for more weaponry as Russia prepares new offensives.
“If we had already got what we needed — all these planes, tanks, artillery, anti-missile and anti-ship weapons — we could have saved thousands of people,” he said.
Several people killed in train derailment in Hungary
A train derailed after striking a vehicle in southern Hungary early Tuesday, leaving several people dead and others injured, police said.
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The accident occurred just before 7 a.m. in the town of Mindszent. Police said a van drove onto the train tracks and was struck by a train, which derailed from the force of the collision.
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