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Russia Ukraine News Highlights | Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russian troops "murderers, torturers, rapists, looters" on Monday after dozens of bodies were found near Kyiv, triggering global outrage and vows of tough new sanctions on Moscow.
Local authorities said they had been forced to dig communal graves to bury the dead accumulating in the streets, including some found with their hands bound behind their backs, in scenes that sent shockwaves through international capitals more than a month into Russia's invasion.
Despite Russian denials of responsibility, condemnation was swift, with Western leaders, NATO and the UN all voicing horror at reports of civilian murders in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, and elsewhere.
Zelensky was unsparing in his nightly video message, warning "concentrated evil has come to our land". He described Russian troops as "murderers, torturers, rapists, looters, who call themselves the army and who deserve only death after what they did", speaking in Ukrainian.
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Russian lawmakers submitted a draft bill to the lower house of parliament, or the Duma, that envisages a prison term of up to 10 years and fines for adhering to Western sanctions in Russia, Interfax state news agency reported on Monday. The bill, if passed, would mark further tightening of Russian laws after Moscow launched what it calls "a special military operation" in Ukraine on Feb. 24, prompting an unprecedented wave of Western economic sanctions in response.
The new bill, which needs to be approved by the parliament and signed by President Vladimir Putin before it becomes law, aims to prevent a deterioration of Russia's economic situation, Interfax quoted lawmaker, Pavel Krasheninnikov, as saying. (Reuters)
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, long an advocate of Western rapprochement with Russia, expressed regret for his earlier stance, saying his years of support for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline had been a clear mistake. Steinmeier, a Social Democrat who served as Foreign Minister under Chancellor Angela Merkel before being elevated to the presidency, said Russia's invasion of Ukraine meant he and others had to reckon honestly with what they had got wrong. "My adherence to Nord Stream 2 was clearly a mistake," he said. "We were sticking to a bridge in which Russia no longer believed and which other partners had warned us against."(Reuters)
A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was stopped during an attempt to reach Mariupol, Ukraine to evacuate civilians and is now being held in the nearby town Manhush, a spokesperson told Reuters on Monday.
"A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is being held in the town of Manhush, 20 kilometers west of Mariupol," ICRC spokesperson Jason Straziuso told Reuters. He said the team was being held by police, without giving further details. "It's not a hostage situation," he added.
USPresident Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal on Monday and said he would call for a war crimes trial, as a global outcry mounted over civilian killings in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, Reuters reported.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday described as "genocide" the killings of civilians in the town of Bucha outside the capital Kyiv reclaimed from Russian forces."These are war crimes and it will be recognised by the world as genocide," Zelensky said during a visit to Bucha, where bodies were discovered strewn throughout the town after it was reclaimed by Kyiv's army."You stand here today and see what happened. We know that thousands of people have been killed and tortured with extremities cut off, women raped, children killed," he told reporters wearing a bullet-proof vest and accompanied by military personnel."It's genocide," he added.Ukraine and Western nations have accused Russian troops of war crimes after the discovery of mass graves and apparently executed civilians at Bucha, prompting vows of action at the International Criminal Court.Russia's defence ministry denied its troops had killed civilians in the town recently retaken by Ukrainian soldiers.Britain, France, Germany, the United States and NATO all voiced horror at the images from Bucha, where some of the bodies lying in public appeared to have been bound by their hands and feet before being shot.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen on Monday said the EU was ready to send a team of investigators to gather evidence of possible war crimes after the discovery of killed civilians near Kiev."The EU is ready to reinforce this effort by sending investigation teams on the ground to support the Ukrainian Prosecution Services. Eurojust and Europol are ready to assist," she said, referring to EU law enforcement organisations.
The Ukrainian port city of Mariupol in the south-east of the country has been "90 percent" destroyed after being besieged by Russian forces, its mayor Vadym Boichenko said Monday."The sad news is that 90 percent of the infrastructure in the city is destroyed and 40 percent is unrecoverable," Boichenko told a press conference. Around 130,000 people remained trapped in the city, he said.
German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said Monday it was not yet possible for the EU to cut Russian gas imports as a sanction against Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, since it would do it more harm than just to Russia. "We have to cut all economic relationship to Russia, but at the moment, it's not possible to cut the gas supplies. We need some time," Lindner said as he arrived for talks with his eurozone counterparts in Luxembourg.
More than 4.2 million Ukrainian refugees have now fled the country since the Russian invasion, the United Nations said Monday, adding that the humanitarian situation was worsening.UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said 4,215,047 Ukrainians had fled the country since the war began on February 24 -- a figure up 38,646 on the numbers for Sunday."The humanitarian needs are growing by the minute as more people flee the war in Ukraine," the UN's International Organization for Migration said.The IOM says that in addition to Ukrainian refugees, nearly 205,500 non-Ukrainians living, studying or working in the country have also left.Meanwhile, nearly 6.48 million people were estimated to be internally displaced within Ukraine as of mid-March, according IOM.Before the Russian invasion, Ukraine had a population of 37 million in the regions under government control, excluding Russia-annexed Crimea and the pro-Russian separatist regions in the east.Women and children account for 90 percent of those who have left Ukraine, with men aged 18 to 60 eligible for military call-up and unable to leave.The UN children's agency UNICEF said in late March that more than half of the country's estimated 7.5 million children had been displaced -- 2.5 million internally and two million abroad. Here is a breakdown of how many Ukrainian refugees have fled to neighbouring countries, according to UNHCR.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday introducing visa restrictions for citizens of countries that Moscow deems "unfriendly" in response to sanctions over Ukraine.The decree, which comes into force on Monday, suspends Russia's simplified visa issuance regime with some European Union countries as well as Norway, Switzerland, Denmark and Iceland.It also ordered the Russian foreign ministry and other bodies to decide on introducing personal entry restrictions on "foreign citizens and stateless people who commit unfriendly actions against Russia, its citizens or its legal entities."
Former German chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday defended her 2008 decision to block Ukraine from immediately joining NATO, rejecting President Volodymyr Zelensky's criticism as Russia's invasion clouds her 16-year legacy.Zelensky in a night-late address had described as a "miscalculation" a Franco-German-led decision at the NATO summit in Bucharest to not admit his country to the alliance despite a push from the United States."I invite Ms Merkel and Mr (Nicolas) Sarkozy to visit Bucha and see what the policy of concessions to Russia has led to in 14 years," he said, referring to the alleged atrocities against Ukrainian civilians by Russian troops that world powers have described as "war crimes".The Ukrainian president also accused the European leaders of seeking to appease Russia with their stance then.But Merkel in a short statement issued by her spokeswoman said she "stands by her decisions in relation to the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest"."In view of the atrocities uncovered in Bucha and other places in Ukraine, all efforts by the government and the international community to stand by Ukraine's side and to bring an end to Russia's barbarism and war against Ukraine have the former chancellor's full support," added the spokeswoman.Germany had deemed it too early for Ukraine to join NATO in 2008 because it found that the political conditions were not met at that point.Merkel, who retired from politics late last year after four consecutive terms in power, had once been hailed as the leader of the free world.But Russian President Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine has exposed flaws in her legacy, with critics saying she left Germany and Europe vulnerable with her detente policy towards the Kremlin leader.Under particular scrutiny is Germany's reliance on Russian energy, which made up 36 percent of its gas imports in 2014 but which rose to 55 percent by the time of the February 24 invasion.The dependence on Russian power has left Berlin saying it is unable to follow a call by the US and other allies to impose a full energy embargo on Moscow.
Hundreds wait for a train to take them west out of the path of the Russian advance at the station in Kramatorsk, the de facto capital of Ukrainian-controlled territory in Donbas."It's been like this since the end of last week. Almost 2,000 people a day are boarding trains west for Lviv or elsewhere," says Nasir, a humanitarian volunteer helping with the operation."It used to be two trains a day. Now it's four," he adds."The situation is bad. Lots of people have already left. The men are staying, our families are leaving," says Andriy, whose wife and two children are taking shelter from the rain under the awning of a fast-food hut with their bags at their feet.Sofia, his teenage daughter standing around with three friends also making their way west, admits she is "a bit sad" to be leaving."I'm sending my children to the west like everyone else, to my brother-in-law's village" away from the frontline, says Andriy, holding on to his youngest child's hand.
