Russian troops pulled out the tongues
of civilians in Ukraine, its president told the UN Security Council on Tuesday. Volodymyr
Zelensky alleged horrifying details of war
crimes by Vladimir Putin’s troops after he visited the Kyiv
suburb of Bucha, liberated from Russian hands on Saturday.
He told diplomats Russia’s men had tortured
civilians, crushed some to death in their tanks “for pleasure,” raped women in
front of their children, and pulled out victims’ tongues “because the aggressor
did not hear what they wanted to hear from them”.
Harrowing images published over the
weekend showed tied bodies shot at close range in the town while a mass grave
filled with corpses was also uncovered by Ukrainian forces. Graphic
footage from Bucha and other major areas of Ukraine where Russia is accused of
war crimes was shown to diplomats by Ukraine’s delegation. Among the corpses captured
in the footage were children.
Mr Zelensky said the scenes from Bucha
showed there “not a single crime that they [Russian forces] would not commit.
Today, as a result of Russia’s actions in our country, in Ukraine the most
terrible war crimes of all times, that we’ve seen since the end of World War
Two, have been committed,” he told delegates.
“Russian troops are deliberately
destroying Ukrainian cities to ashes with artillery and air strikes, they are
deliberately blocking cities, creating mass starvation. They deliberately shoot
columns of civilians on the road trying to escape from the hostilities. They
even deliberately blow up shelters where civilians hide from air strikes. They
are deliberately creating conditions in the temporarily occupied territories so
that as many civilians as possible are killed there.” The Ukrainian leader has
warned more details could yet emerge of war crimes in other areas of the
country.
Ukrainian authorities say they have
re-established control of the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions after Moscow pledged to
significantly reduce its military operation and focus on the Donbas region.
Russia has claimed, without evidence,
that photos in Bucha were staged by Ukraine. The Kremlin has said it will
present “empirical evidence” that its forces are not behind the killings in the
town to the Security Council, despite mounting evidence of Russian committed
atrocities.
But satellite images analysed by the
New York Times debunked Moscow’s claim that Russian troops were not involved in
some of the atrocities. The newspaper matched a photo showing up to 11 dead
bodies from March 11 – when the town was under Russian occupation - with
footage shot by a local resident on April 2. It means the corpses may have been
there for weeks.
Evening Standard
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