Comparison with Waffen SS
Ukraine wants to avenge Bucha’s murders
4/4/2022, 4:55 p.m
The Ukrainian defense minister does not want the massacres in the Kiev suburb of Bucha to go unpunished. Resnikov has announced that the secret service will pursue any occupier who participated in the atrocities, comparing the Russian soldiers to the SS murder squads.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov has accused the Russian army of massacring civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha and threatened retaliation. “Something bad like that shouldn’t go unpunished,” he said in Kyiv. “Our reconnaissance systematically identifies all intruders and murderers. Everyone! Everyone will get what they ‘deserve’ in their time,” the statement said Facebook published notice.
The pictures from the Kiev suburb with corpses on the streets have caused international outrage since Sunday. Resnikov blamed the Russian units that had occupied the place for weeks. He compared their actions to those of the National Socialist Schutzstaffel (SS) in Ukraine during World War II. He also drew a parallel with the civil war in Yugoslavia: more people were killed in Bucha than in Vukovar. In 1991, more than 250 civilians and prisoners of war were murdered by Serbian forces and the Yugoslav army in the Croatian city of Vukovar.
Moscow denies responsibility
So far, around 340 bodies have been found in Bucha, Ukrajinska Pravda reported, citing local undertakers. Russia denies atrocities against the local civilian population and speaks of Ukrainian forgeries.
The Ukrainian defense minister praised Chief of Staff Valeriy Zalushny and all officers and soldiers who helped drive the enemy out of the Kyiv area. “We salute our soldiers who sacrificed their lives to protect the capital from this scourge,” he wrote. Fierce fighting continued in the eastern regions of Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk. In Cherson, the Ukrainian troops put pressure on the occupying forces. The defenders of Mariupol, who have already become legends, continued to fight heroically.
The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj sees the continuation of the peace negotiations with Russia more difficult after the events in Bucha. It is “difficult” to continue the talks now, said Selenskyj during a visit to Bucha northwest of Kyiv.