In Boutcha, in the northwest of kyiv in Ukraine, an AFP journalist saw the bodies of around twenty men lying in a street on Saturday. These people were “all killed with a bullet in the back of the head”, according to Anatoly Fedorouk, the mayor of this city taken back from the Russians, where nearly 300 corpses were buried in mass graves. “We found mass graves. We found people with their hands and legs tied up…and with gunshots, bullet holes, in the back of their heads,” he told reporters. BBC Ukrainian President’s Spokesman Sergiy Nikiforovil. “They were clearly civilians and they were executed.” “It looks exactly like war crimes,” he said.
Bucha massacre was deliberate. Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can. We must stop them and kick them out. I demand new devastating G7 sanctions NOW:
-Oil, gas, coal embargo
-Close all ports to Russian vessels and goods
-Disconnect all Russian banks from SWIFT pic.twitter.com/oZkCAETCQp— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) April 3, 2022
New sanctions mentioned
“The Boutcha massacre was deliberate. The Russians want to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can. We must stop them and kick them out. I demand devastating new G7 sanctions NOW,” the Ukrainian minister wrote on Twitter. of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kouleba. Her British counterpart Liz Truss said she was “horrified by the atrocities in Boutcha and other towns” and called for a “war crimes investigation”.
Shocked by haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army in Kyiv liberated region #BuchaMassacre
EU is assisting #Ukraine & NGO’s in gathering of necessary evidence for pursuit in international courts.
Further EU sanctions & support are on their way.
Слава Україні!
— Charles Michel (@eucopresident) April 3, 2022
The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, also said he was “shocked by the haunting images of atrocities committed by the Russian army in the liberated region of kyiv”, on Twitter. “The EU is helping Ukraine and NGOs to gather the necessary evidence for prosecution in international courts,” he said, adding, “more EU sanctions and help are on the way. “.
German Vice-Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck on Sunday denounced a “terrible war crime” and called for new economic sanctions to be adopted by EU countries against Russia. “This terrible war crime cannot go unanswered,” the ecologist told the German newspaper Bild, the day after the discovery of numerous corpses in Boutcha, a town northwest of kyiv, taken back from the Russians. “I think a strengthening of sanctions is indicated. This is what we are preparing with our EU partners,” he added.
Russians leave behind ‘a total disaster’
Butcha and the nearby town of Irpin, rendered unrecognizable by shelling, have been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting since Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, when Russian soldiers were trying to surround kyiv. On Sunday morning, the historic city of Odessa suffered a series of airstrikes.
According to Ukraine, the localities of Irpin, Boucha, Gostomel and the entire kyiv region “have been liberated from the invader” who are abandoning key towns near the capital as well as Cherniguiv, in the north of the country, to redeploy towards the East and the South and “keep control” of the territories they occupy there. But the Russians leave behind “a total disaster and many dangers”, denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Facebook, accusing them of “undermining the territories they are leaving, houses, ammunition and even corpses”.