Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, where hundreds of civilians were killed by Russian forces, April 4, 2022 (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty)

Monday’s Coverage: 100s of Civilians Killed by Russia’s Forces in Bucha

UPDATE 1852 GMT:

Russian forces have blocked the Red Cross from reaching the besieged port city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine for a fifth straight day, according to Ukraine Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

On Monday, the Russian military held up the convoy and briefly held a Red Cross team before allowing it to return to Zaporizhzhia, 132 miles northwest of Mariupol (see Original Entry).

UPDATE 1740 GMT:

India has issued its strongest condemnation of Russia so far during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Delhi’s Ambassador to the UN, T.S. Tirumurti, denounced the mass killing of Ukrainian civilians. During Security Council session, he said, “Recent reports of civilian killings in Bucha are deeply disturbing. We unequivocally condemn these killings and support the call for an independent investigation.”

The Modi Government — with economic and military links with Moscow— has steadfastly refused to call Russia’s attacks an “invasion” of Ukraine, and has increased oil purchases from the Russians.

Before the Security Council session, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Indian \goreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

UPDATE 1725 GMT:

Bucha Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk says displaced residents should not return to their homes because of mines left by the Russian forces.He said about 3,700 of Bucha’s 37,000 population had remained in the town during the Russian occupation.

UPDATE 1715 GMT:

For the first time, the Israeli Government has accused Russia of war crimes over the mass killing of Ukrainian civilians.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said, “The images and testimony from Ukraine are horrific. Russian forces committed war crimes against a defenseless civilian population. I strongly condemn these war crimes.”

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett had stopped short of accusing Russian forces.

We’re shocked by the terrible sights in Bucha — awful scenes — and we condemn them.

The suffering of Ukrainian citizens is immense, and we’re doing everything we can to assist.

Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman had broken with colleagues on Monday by not issuing a condemnation, citing “mutual accusations” and promoted Russia’s effort to cover up the killings with a UN Security Council meeting to accuse “Ukrainian radicals” of a “blatant provocation”.

UPDATE 1450 GMT:

Zelensky asks, “How to stop this?”, and answers that “those who ordered this war must be punished”.

He proposes an international conference to restore the “international rule of law”: “The power of peace must become dominant.”

Are you ready to close the UN? Do you think that the time of international law is gone? If your answer is no, then you need to act immediately.

UPDATE 1440 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy opens his statement to the UN Security Council with a summary of the “war crimes” — mass killings, executions, and torture, with women and children among the victims — by Russian troops in Bucha.

“This is no different from other terrorists such as Daesh, and it is being done by a member of the UN Security Council,” he notes.

Zelenskiy warns that Bucha is “only one example of what Russia has done” and there will be more revelations in other towns and cities as territory is retaken by Ukrainian forces.

He anticipates the Russian response, with disinformation, and says, “But this is 2022. We have evidence.”

“If the biggest war criminal is punished, then other potential war criminals will see this,” he summarizes.

UPDATE 1415 GMT:

Addressing a Security Council meeting, Secretary General Antonio Guterres has denounced the Russian invasion of another “sovereign member” of the UN, violating the UN Charter, and has referred to “possible war crimes” by the Russians.

“It is more urgent than ever to silence the guns,” Guterres says.

He notes the dispatch of Martin Griffiths, the UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, to Ukraine and Russia to seek a ceasefire.

UPDATE 1353 GMT:

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced the European Union’s proposed 5th set of sanctions against Russia. They include:

  • An import ban on coal, worth €4 billion per year
  • A full transaction ban on 4 major Russian banks, including the second-largest bank VTB
  • A ban on Russian and Russian-operated vessels from access to EU ports and a ban on Russian and Belarusian road transport operators
  • Further export bans, worth €10 billion, on advanced semiconductors, machinery, and transport equipment
  • New import bans, worth €5.5 billion
  • A ban on involvement of Russian companies in public procurement and exclusion of all EU or national financial support to Russian public bodies

UPDATE 1244 GMT:

The UN has found that Russian forces carried out deliberate mass killing of civilians in Bucha.

UN human rights office spokesperson Liz Throssell told reporters in Geneva of images of people with their hands bound and bodies of women found naked and partially burned.

What we’re talking about here appears to be the direct killing and targeting of civilians in Bucha….

This is extremely disturbing, and does really strongly suggest that they were directly targeted as individuals, and here, what we must stress is that under international humanitarian law, the deliberate killing of civilians is a war crime….

You could argue there was a military context, for example, to a building being hit; it’s hard to see what was the military context of an individual lying in the street with a bullet to the head or having their bodies burned.

UPDATE 1235 GMT:

More European countries have expelled Russian staff.

Spain, Italy, Denmark, and Sweden demanded the removal of a total of more than 120 Russian personnel working under diplomatic cover.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said 25 Russian diplomats and Embassy staff are to leave, but the Russian ambassador may remain.

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi di Miao said 30 Russian personnel have been expelled “for national security reasons”. Denmark has declared 15 Russian “intelligence officers” persona not grata.

France and Germany announced expulsions on Monday (see Original Entry).

UPDATE 1232 GMT:

A tank of nitric acid in Rubizhne in eastern Ukraine, hit by a Russian strike, is spreading a cloud of toxic smoke.

The head of the Luhansk regional military administration said earlier, “The shelling is very heavy, street fighting continues. In Rubizhne, the dead are buried in the yards.” (see 0830 GMT)

UPDATE 1225 GMT:

A civilian ship has been shelled by Russian forces is sinking in the port of the besieged city of Mariupol, according to the Ukraine Interior Ministry.

The explosion set off a fire in the engine room of the ship, flying the flag of the Dominican Republic, and destroyed the captain’s bridge. The crew was rescued, with one injury.

The ship is “gradually going under water”, said the Ministry, but it is “impossible to conduct a rescue operation under constant fire”.

UPDATE 0900 GMT:

As he expressed regret for the Nord Stream 2 gas deal with Russia (see Original Entry), German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called Vladimir Putin a “dug-in warmonger“.

An EA correspondent in Germany assesses, “With this allusion, Steinmeier is adding insult to injury, expecting Putin to stop gas exports — so the blame falls on the Kremlin.”

UPDATE 0849 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called on other countries to fulfil Ukraine’s pursuit of security guarantees, a central part of its proposals in talks with Russia.

Speaking to journalists on Ukrainian State TV, Zelenskiy said that Kyiv has not yet received “a specific list of these countries that are prepared to 100% stand up for us”.

“We need serious players who are ready to go all the way. We need a circle of countries who would within 24 hours provide us with any weapons,” he said.

Ukraine has proposed guarantors such as France, the US, the UK, Germany, Turkey, and Poland for an arrangement similar to NATO’s Artice 5 for collective defense if a member is attacked.

He said that if Russia again invaded Ukraine, “These countries would come together. And within 24 hours, two or three days will impose everything, block everything. And simply put this country [Russia] in a containment.”

Zelenskiy also withdrew any Ukrainian commitment in the talks about not joining NATO.

The President said Ukraine has “given away too many lives not to be frank”: “If we are offered NATO membership tomorrow without playing with our lives, then we will join.”

UPDATE 0830 GMT:

The head of the Luhansk regional military administration in eastern Ukraine reports intense Russian shelling and a “difficult” situation.

Serhii Haidai said, “Neither rescuers nor ambulance doctors can reach some districts of Popasna and Rubizhne in Luhansk region. The shelling is very heavy, street fighting continues. In Rubizhne, the dead are buried in the yards.”

UPDATE 0910 GMT:

The Ukraine Prosecutor General’s office says at least 165 children have been killed including four in the past day, and 266 wounded during the Russian invasion.

UPDATE 0837 GMT:

Residents of liberated towns from northern to southern Ukraine are speaking of detention, torture, and executions — mock and real — before Russian forces were “routed” and withdrew.

In Nova Basan, about 60 miles east of Kyiv, local official Mykola Dyachenko said he among some 20 men imprisoned by Russian troops for 25 days.

He was put through a simulated execution 15 times, his eyes bound with sticky tape, as the Russian tried to extract information about local Ukraine defense forces and ammunition.

Two other men described detention and beatings with punches, kicks, and rifle butts. One was tied up with his arms suspended, and another was strapped to a chair with a grenade between his legs for 30 hours and had a gun fired beside the side of his head.

A wounded member of the territorial defense was taken away and not been seen again.The men escaped as the Russians prepared to withdraw. However, the Russians were cut off by a Ukrainian tank firing on the main checkpoint in the town last Thursday and by other vehicles cutting off the escape route, sparking a rout of the occupiers. Russian armored vehicles were destroyed. Another crashed into a line of shops, and one tumbled off the road.

In the fishing village of Lotskyne in southern Ukraine, Russian soldiers asked everyone to identify the “Nazis” in the neighborhood. They took math teacher Serhii Bozhiko, falsely accused him of sympathizing with the Azov Battalion, beat him, shot him in the elbow, and finally killed him.

All the men were detained and some beaten when the Russians moved in. Other villagers said they were repeatedly threatened at gunpoint. The Russian troops broke into stores, looting ice cream and produce, stole cars, and forced residents out of homes. They even took children’s toys, clothes, and kitchen pots and pans, and killed chickens for food.

After 10 days, the occupiers were forced out by the Ukrainian military.

UPDATE 0720 GMT:

A New York Times analysis of satellite images dismantles the Kremlin’s disinformation that the killing of civilians in Bucha only occurred after Russian troops had left the town.

The Russian Defense Ministry has declared that bodies were placed on the streets after “all Russian units withdrew completely from Bucha” around March 30.

But the satellite images show the bodies on Yablonska Street between March 9 and March 11, remaining there for more than three weeks until the Russian forces withdrew and the Ukrainian military moved into Bucha.

Scattered over more than half a mile of the street, some victims have their hands bound behind their backs with white cloth.

Video shows other bodies between March 20 and March 21.

UPDATE 0615 GMT:

The governor of the Sumy region in northeast Ukraine, Dmytro Zhyvytsky, says the Ukrainian military found the bodies of at least three tortured civilians in the city of Konotop.

Officials confirmed on Monday that all Russian forces had withdrawn from the region, east of Kyiv and west of Kharkiv.

UPDATE 0605 GMT:

Russian forces blocked the Red Cross from providing aid to and evacuating civilians from besieged Mariupol for a fourth straight day on Monday.

A Red Cross spokesperson confirmed that the convoy is being held up in town of Manhush, 20km (12.5 miles) west of Mariupol.

The Russians have finally released the Red Cross team, sending them back to Zaporizhzhia, 132 miles northwest of Mariupol, according to Ukraine Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

Up to 160,000 people are still trapped amid the Russian siege of almost six weeks.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine officials and journalists in the country have expressed fear of Russian mass killings that will be even worse than the slaying of hundreds of civilians in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv.

The concerns came as international leaders called for an urgent investigation of the killings and executions in Bucha, as US President Joe Biden said Vladimir Putin should be tried for war crimes, and the US and UK announced they will seek the suspension of Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.

Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said officials expect the town of Borodyanka will have the highest number of victims of Russian military operations in the Kyiv region — even greater than the estimate of more than 300 in Bucha, 23 km (14 miles) to the east.

As the Ukraine military recovers territory after the Russian withdrawal, journalists wrote of the discovery of bodies pointing to executions.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who will appear at the UN Security Council today, visited Bucha on Monday. He said:

And this is only one town. One of many Ukrainian communities which the Russian forces managed to capture. Now, there is information that in Borodyanka and some other liberated Ukrainian towns, the number of casualties of the occupiers may be even much higher.

As the Kremlin launched an all-out disinformation effort, Zelenskiy noted the “false campaign to conceal their guilt in the mass killings of civilians in Mariupol”, the besieged city in southern Ukraine where more than 5,000 people have been slain.

They will do dozens of staged interviews, re-edited recordings, and will kill people specifically to make it look like they were killed by someone else.

Probably, now the occupiers will try to hide the traces of their crimes. They did not do this in Bucha when they retreated. But in another area it is possible.

“Truth, Justice, and Accountability”

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said all bodies in Bucha must be exhumed and identified to ensure a full inquiry, including of responsibility.

Reports emerging from this and other areas raise serious and disturbing questions about possible war crimes, grave breaches of international humanitarian law and serious violations of international human rights law….

It is vital that all efforts are made to ensure there are independent and effective investigations into what happened in Bucha to ensure truth, justice, and accountability, as well as reparations and remedy for victims and their families.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council head Charles Michel echoed the call, so “perpetrators of war crimes will be held accountable”. They pledged “further EU sanctions and support are on their way”.

The US State Department said it will assist an international team of prosecutors and experts in collection and analysis of evidence, and Biden also pointed to tougher sanctions as he said a “brutal” Vladimir Putin should be tried for war crimes.

We have to gather the information. We have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue to fight, and we have to get all the detail [to] have a war crimes trial.

His statement followed the announcement, by Ambassador to the UN Linda Greenfield-Thomas, that the US will seek the suspension of Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, speaking alongside Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, gave London’s support.

Kuleba said the evidence in Bucha were just the “tip of the iceberg” of the mass killings. He emphasized Speaking the “horrors of Bucha, Mariupol, and other places” demand “serious G7 and EU sanctions”.

Sanctions and Expulsions

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Putin and his supporters would “feel the consequences” of events in Bucha, with allies further sanctions against Russia in the coming days.

In a notable shift, given Germany’s dependence on Russian energy supplies, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said the European Union should now consider a ban on Russian gas imports. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Monday about the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia, completed last autumn but yet to go into operation:

My holding on to Nord Stream 2 was clearly a mistake. We held on to bridges that Russia no longer believed in and that our partners warned us about….

My assessment was that Vladimir Putin would not accept the complete economic, political and moral ruin of his country for his imperial mania — there, like others, I was wrong.

To secure the energy supply, authorities temporarily took control of the Russian gas company Gazprom’s German subsidiary.

US National Security Jake Sullivan said new American sanctions will be announced this week. The Treasury stopped Russia paying holders of its sovereign debt more than $600m from reserves held at American banks. A spokeswoman said:

Beginning today, the US Treasury will not permit any dollar debt payments to be made from Russian government accounts at U.S. financial institutions. Russia must choose between draining remaining valuable dollar reserves or new revenue coming in, or default.

Zelenskiy responded to the latest announcements, in the context of the discoveries about the mass killings:

Was it really necessary to wait for this to reject doubts and indecision?

Did hundreds of our people really have to die in agony for some European leaders to finally understand that the Russian state deserves the most severe pressure?…

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. I do not blame you – I blame only the Russian military. But you could have helped.

On the diplomatic front, Germany announced the expulsion of about 40 Russian diplomats, as Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock denounced the Kremlin’s “unbelievable brutality” and “boundless will to exterminate”. France expelled 35 Russian personnel “whose activities are against our interests”.

The expulsions follow similar actions by other European countries, including Poland’s demand for the removal of 45 staff, against Russians suspected of intelligence activities while operating under diplomatic cover.