Zelenskyy calls for war crimes trials
VOLODYMYR Zelenskyy accused Russia of committing the “most terrible war crimes since the Second World War” as he called for trials akin to those held after the defeat of the Nazis.
In a graphic address to the United Nations (UN) Security Council yesterday, the Ukrainian President accused his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin’s forces of creating “mass starvation” and shooting and raping civilians.
During the Uk-convened meeting of the UN’S most powerful body, whose membership includes Russia, he called for those responsible to be “brought to justice” in a tribunal similar to the Nuremberg trials.
Mr Zelenskyy said the world has yet to see what the Kremlin’s troops have done in other regions after evidence of atrocities was unearthed after their withdrawal from Bucha, near Kyiv.
“Today, as a result of Russia’s actions in our country, in Ukraine, the most terrible war crimes we’ve seen since the end of World War Two are being committed,” he said in the virtual address.
“Russian troops are deliberately destroying Ukrainian cities to ashes with artillery and air strikes. They are deliberately blocking cities, creating mass starvation. They deliberately shoot columns of civilians on the road trying to escape.
“They even deliberately blow up shelters where civilians hide from air strikes.
“The massacre in our city of Bucha is unfortunately only one of many examples of what the occupiers have been doing on our land for the past 41 days.”
Mr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “wanting to turn Ukraine into silent slaves” and its military of “wide-scale looting”, stealing everything from food to bloodied jewellery.
He also accused the West of having “watched and did not want to see” the occupation of Crimea and the Georgian war.
“The Russian military and those who gave them orders must be brought to justice immediately for war crimes in Ukraine,” he said.
“Anyone who has given criminal orders and carried out them by killing our people will be brought before the tribunal, which should be similar to the Nuremberg tribunals.”
President Zelenskyy’s comments came as high-resolution satellite imagery showed bodies have been lying in the open for weeks in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, as Russia denied it had committed war crimes.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, insisted at a news conference that during the time that Bucha was under Russian control “not a single local person has suffered from any violent action”.
But satellite imagery from commercial provider Maxar Technologies, first reported by The New York Times, proved the bodies had been there for weeks.
Western and Ukrainian leaders have accused Russia of war crimes before, and the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor has already opened an investigation. But the latest reports ratcheted up the condemnation.
US president Joe Biden called for a war crimes trial against Russian leader Vladimir Putin and said he will seek more sanctions after the reported atrocities in Ukraine.
“You saw what happened in Bucha,” Mr Biden said, describing Mr Putin as a “war criminal”.
German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said photographs from Bucha show the “unbelievable brutality of the Russian leadership and those who follow its propaganda”.
Russia has withdrawn many of its forces from the capital area after being thwarted in its bid to swiftly capture Kyiv.
It has instead poured troops and mercenaries into the country’s east in a bid to gain control of the Donbas, the largely Russianspeaking industrial region that includes the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, which has seen some of the heaviest fighting and worst suffering of the war.
About two-thirds of the Russian troops around Kyiv have left and are either in Belarus or on their way there, probably getting more supplies and reinforcements, said a senior US defence official.