After Bucha Massacre Zelenskyy Calls for Russia War Crimes Tribunal at UN

Edited by: TJVNews.com

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the Russians of gruesome atrocities in Ukraine and told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that those responsible should immediately be brought up on war crimes charges in front of a tribunal like the one established at Nuremberg after World War II, according to an AP report.

Zelenskyy, appearing via video from Ukraine, said that civilians had been tortured, shot in the back of the head, thrown down wells, blown up with grenades in their apartments and crushed to death by tanks while in cars.

“They cut off limbs, cut their throats. Women were raped and killed in front of their children. Their tongues were pulled out only because their aggressor did not hear what they wanted to hear from them,” he said, recounting what he described as the worst atrocities since World War II.

The AP report indicated that over the past few days, grisly images of what appeared to be civilian massacres carried out by Russian forces in Bucha before they withdrew from outskirts of Kyiv have stirred a global outcry and led Western nations to expel dozens of Moscow’s diplomats and propose further sanctions, including a ban on coal imports from Russia.

Zelenskyy said that both those who carried out the killings and those who gave the orders “must be brought to justice immediately for war crimes” in front of a tribunal similar to what was used in postwar Germany.

AP also reported that Moscow’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said that while Bucha was under Russian control, “not a single local person has suffered from any violent action.” Reiterating what the Kremlin has contended for days, he said that video footage of bodies in the streets was “a crude forgery” staged by the Ukrainians.

“You only saw what they showed you,” he said. “The only ones who would fall for this are Western dilettantes.”

Associated Press journalists in Bucha have counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes and interviewed Ukrainians who told of witnessing atrocities. Also, high-resolution satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed that many of the bodies had been lying in the open for weeks, during the time that Russian forces were in the town, according to the AP report.

Zelenskyy stressed that Bucha was only one place and that there are more with similar horrors — a warning echoed by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

“When and if they withdraw their troops and Ukrainian troops take over, I’m afraid they will see more mass graves, more atrocities and more examples of war crimes,” he said, as was reported by the AP.

Stoltenberg, meanwhile, warned that in pulling back from the capital, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military is regrouping its forces in order to deploy them to eastern and southern Ukraine for a “crucial phase of the war.” Russia’s stated goal is control of the Donbas, the largely Russian-speaking industrial region in the east that includes the shattered port city of Mariupol.

“Moscow is not giving up its ambitions in Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said.

Ukrainian officials said that 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 Bucha, according to the AP report.

Zelenskyy told the Security Council there was “not a single crime” that Russian troops hadn’t committed in Bucha, and he likened their actions to those of the Islamic State group.

“The Russian military searched for and purposefully killed anyone who served our country. They shot and killed women outside their houses when they just tried to call someone who is alive. They killed entire families, adults and children, and they tried to burn the bodies,” he said. They used tanks to crush civilians “just for their pleasure,” he said.

On Monday, President Joe Biden called for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to be tried for war crimes because of the atrocities and abuses seen around Kyiv after Russian forces pulled back from the Ukrainian capital. The corpses of what appeared to be civilians were seen strewn in yards, many of them likely killed at close range, according to the AP report.

Biden said Monday that the U.S. and its allies would gather details for a war crimes trial, stressing that Putin has been “brutal” and his actions “outrageous.”

Also on Tuesday, the AP reported that police and other investigators walked the silent streets of Bucha, taking notes on bodies that residents showed them. Survivors who hid in their homes during the monthlong Russian occupation of the town, many of them past middle age, wandered past charred tanks and jagged window panes with plastic bags of food and other humanitarian aid. Red Cross workers checked in on intact homes.

Many of the dead seen by AP journalists appeared to have been shot at close range, and some had their hands bound or their flesh burned, the report indicated.

The AP and the PBS series “Frontline” have jointly verified at least 90 incidents during the war that appear to violate international law. The War Crimes Watch Ukraine project is looking into apparent targeted attacks as well as indiscriminate ones.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the images from Bucha revealed “not the random act of a rogue unit” but “a deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities.” He said the reports of atrocities were “more than credible,” as was reported by the AP.

“Only non-humans are capable of this,” said Angelica Chernomor, a refugee from Kyiv who crossed into Poland with her two children and saw the photos from Bucha, according to the AP report. “Even if people live under a totalitarian regime, they must retain feelings, dignity, but they do not.”

In a related development, the AP reported that the United States should look at the development of more bases in Eastern Europe to protect against Russian aggression, but rotate forces through them rather than make permanent deployments, the top U.S military officer told Congress on Tuesday.

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the basing could be funded by other countries such as Poland and the Baltics that want more U.S. troops. The AP also reported that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said any effort to expand security in Eastern Europe is a “work in progress” that probably will be discussed at the NATO summit in June.

Milley and Austin were testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on the 2023 budget proposal, but much of the focus of the hearing was the Russian war against Ukraine and what the U.S. can do to better help Ukraine and strengthen security across Europe.

Milley was asked about the need to reallocate forces to Europe’s eastern flank, where NATO allies are worried that they may be Russia’s next target.

“My advice would be to create permanent bases but don’t permanently station (forces), so you get the effect of permanence by rotational forces cycling through permanent bases,” he said, as was reported by the AP. “I believe that a lot of our European allies, especially those such as the Baltics or Poland and Romania, and elsewhere — they’re very, very willing to establish permanent bases. They’ll build them, they’ll pay for them.”

Austin added that he recently visited and spoke with leaders in the Baltics, noting that they made it clear they value U.S. troops there. “We’ll continue to work with NATO to assess what the requirements will be moving forward,” Austin said. “We will be part of that solution.”

The AP reported that the Pentagon is continuing to review its troop numbers across Europe, and whether to add more or shift some of those already there to other locations. Milley said Tuesday that while there are no decisions yet, there’s a possibility, if not a probability” of increase U.S. troops in Europe, and that need could be filled by rotational forces.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced last month that NATO is creating four new battlegroups, which usually number between 1,000 troops and 1,500 troops, to send to Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. NATO allies are set to discuss additional security measures at the upcoming summit, as was reported by the AP.

Milley has advocated using rotational forces more around the globe to defray the costs of permanently stationing troops and their families in allied countries at risk of war, such as South Korea and in the Persian Gulf. He said using this would eliminate some of the costs associated with schools, housing and other such services.

Rotational forces deploy for shorter periods of time. Permanent forces are often deployed for two years to three years.

The AP reported that Milley also agreed that Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine, and its ongoing demands that the U.S. and NATO reduce troops and arms in European countries along Russia’s borders, signal a lengthy conflict in the region that extends beyond Ukraine.

“I do think this is a very protracted conflict and I think it’s at least measured in years. I don’t know about decades, but at least years for sure,” said Milley, according to the AP report. “I think that NATO, the United States, Ukraine and all of the allies and partners that are supporting Ukraine are going to be involved in this for quite some time.”

In yet another development pertaining to the Russian war on Ukraine, the AP reported that the United States, in coordination with the EU and Group of 7 nations, will roll out new sanctions against Russia on Wednesday — including an investment freeze — in response to evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, according to a U.S. official.

Among the measures being taken against Russia are a ban on all new investment in that country, greater sanctions on its financial institutions and state-owned enterprises, and sanctions on government officials and their family members. The official insisted on anonymity to discuss the forthcoming announcement.

The AP reported that President Biden and U.S. allies have worked together to levy a crippling of economic penalties against Russia for invading Ukraine more than a month ago, including the freezing of central bank assets, export controls and the seizing of property, including yachts, that belong to Russia’s wealthy elite. But calls for increased sanctions intensified this week in response to the attacks, killings and destruction in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

The official said the sanctions would further Russia’s economic, financial and technological “isolation” from the rest of the world as a penalty for its attacks on civilians in Ukraine. That isolation is a key aspect of the U.S. strategy, which is premised on the idea that Russia will ultimately lack the resources and equipment to keep fighting a prolonged war in Ukraine, according to the AP report.

An increasingly desperate Russia has engaged in military tactics that have outraged much of the wider global community, leading to charges that it is committing war crimes and causing other sanctions.

Still, almost all of the EU has refrained from an outright ban on Russian oil and natural gas that would likely crush the Russian economy. The U.S. has banned fossil fuels from Russia, while Lithuania blocked natural gas from that country on Saturday, becoming the first of the 27-member EU to do so. The AP reported that the EU executive branch on Tuesday proposed a ban on Russian coal, while Germany’s government intends to end its use of Russian natural gas over the next two years.

(Source: AP)