Bucha (Ukraine): Ukraine’s president planned to address the U.N.’s most powerful body on Tuesday after even more grisly evidence emerged of civilian massacres in areas that Russian forces recently left. Western nations expelled dozens more of Moscow’s diplomats and proposed further sanctions as they expressed their disgust at what they say are war crimes.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech to the Security Council will be rich with symbolism, but the invitation and other displays of Western support are unlikely to alter the situation on the ground. He says his forces desperately need more powerful weaponry, some of which the West has been reluctant to give. Russia’s veto guarantees the body will take no action, and it was unclear whether its representatives would even remain in the chamber for the video address.
The head of NATO, meanwhile, warned that Russia is regrouping its forces in order to deploy them to eastern and southern Ukraine for a “crucial phase of the war,” as the European Union proposed new sanctions targeting Russia’s lucrative energy industry.
Ukrainian officials said the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv that were recaptured from Russian forces and that a “torture chamber” was discovered in the town called Bucha, from which some of the grimmest details have emerged.
Associated Press journalists in the town have counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes. Many appeared to have been shot at close range, and some had their hands bound or their flesh burned. A mass grave in a churchyard held bodies wrapped in plastic. The Ukrainian prosecutor-general’s office said the bodies of five men with their hands bound were found in the basement of a children’s sanatorium where civilians were tortured and killed.
High-resolution satellite imagery by commercial provider Maxar Technologies, meanwhile, showed that many of the bodies had been lying in the open for weeks, during the time that Russian forces were in the town. The New York Times first reported on the images showing the dead.
U.S. President Joe Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin should be tried for war crimes.
