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‘War crime’ killings near Kyiv raise international outcry, as frontline shifts

MARKO DJURICA and ABDELAZIZ BOUMZAR

INTERNATIONAL outrage spread over civilian killings in northern Ukraine, where a mass grave and tied bodies of people shot at close range were found in a town taken back from Russian forces, as Moscow shifted the focus of the fighting elsewhere.

The deaths in Bucha, outside Kyiv, are likely to galvanise the United States and Europe into additional sanctions against Moscow, possibly including some restrictions on the billions of dollars in energy that Europe still imports from Russia.

The discoveries overshadowed peace talks between Russia and Ukraine that were due to resume on Monday against a backdrop of artillery barrages in Ukraine’s south and east, where Moscow says it is now focusing its operations after it fell short in attempts to take any major cities in the heart of the country.

“These are war crimes and will be recognised by the world as genocide,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on a visit to Bucha. It had become harder, he said, for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia as a result.

Taras Shapravskyi, deputy mayor of the town some 40 km (25 miles) northwest of the capital Kyiv, said around 50 victims of extra-judicial killings by Russian troops had been found thereafter Kremlin forces withdrew late last week.

Reuters saw one man sprawled by the roadside, his hands bound behind his back and a bullet wound to his head. Hands and feet poked through red clay at a mass grave by a church where satellite images showed a 45-foot-long trench.

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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the evidence of civilian killings was just the “tip of the iceberg”, with Ukrainian forces yet to reach all areas vacated by Russian troops, and showed the need for tougher sanctions on Moscow.

Washington, at Kyiv’s request, was backing a multi-national team of international prosecutors who would help collect and analyse evidence of atrocities with a view towards pursuing accountability, the U.S. State Department said on Monday.

The Kremlin categorically denied any accusations related to the murder of civilians, including in Bucha. “This information must be seriously questioned,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “From what we have seen, our experts have identified signs of video falsification and other fakes.”

MAKESHIFT BURIALS

Ukrainian authorities said they had found 421 civilian casualties near Kyiv by Sunday and were investigating possible war crimes in Bucha, a description also used by French President Emmanuel Macron and, in reference to Russia’s broader offensive, by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Reuters saw more makeshift burials elsewhere but could not independently verify the number of dead or who was responsible.

In the village of Motyzhyn, west of Kyiv, Reuters reporters saw three bodies in a forest grave. An adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry said the victims were the village’s leader, Olha Sukhenko, her husband Ihor and son Oleksandr.

Ihor, a local resident who said he was a relative of the family and did not give his surname, told Reuters: “I don’t know what they were killed for. They were peaceful, kind people.”

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Zelenskiy has used the term genocide at various times during the war, decrying what he calls an intent to eliminate the nation by Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, who has questioned Ukraine’s legitimate, independent history from Russia.

By The African Mirror

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