More sanctions hit Russia as Zelenskyy warns of new wartime hardships
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces Wednesday carried out punishing strikes against key Ukrainian cities, brushing aside mounting world outrage over the execution-style killings of civilians even as Washington and its Western allies moved to impose sharp new sanctions against Moscow.
In suburbs around the capital of Kyiv, Ukrainian investigators Wednesday pressed ahead with the grim task of documenting evidence of war crimes in the form of mass graves and mutilated bodies as Ukrainian troops and mine clearers worked to defuse booby traps and explosives left behind by retreating Russian forces.
Ukrainian officials accused Russia of trying to cover up war crimes in other occupied areas, saying that Moscow is now aware that haphazard efforts in the Kyiv region had left an abundance of evidence behind.
In the southern port city of Mariupol, where municipal authorities say thousands of civilians have died, the city council claimed Wednesday on social media that Russia was using mobile crematoriums to dispose of corpses.
That allegation could not be verified. Mariupol remains in Ukrainian hands, but many people have been killed trying to leave the city.
Russia has furiously denied committing atrocities, saying graphic video footage and images that have surfaced in recent days are fake.
With the fighting showing signs of intensifying in the country’s south and east, Ukrainian authorities urged residents of the imperiled eastern region of Luhansk to flee an expected Russian assault while they still could. Luhansk’s governor, Serhiy Haidai, said on Facebook on Wednesday that people were fleeing “under the roar of enemy guns.”
As foreign ministers from NATO gathered in Brussels to weigh options to better support Ukraine in its 6-week-old battle against the Russian invaders, the European Union was set to vote on whether to ban Russian coal imports.
At the same time, Britain, no longer in the EU, imposed sweeping new sanctions, including a full asset freeze on the largest Russian bank, a pledge to end Russian coal and oil imports by the end of the year and the targeting of eight more Russian oligarchs.
In Washington, the Biden administration announced similar measures, targeting two major Russian financial institutions as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two daughters and the family of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“I made clear that Russia would pay a severe and immediate price for its atrocities in Bucha,” Biden said in a tweet.
“Together with our allies, we are showing the Russian elite that they cannot wash their hands of the atrocities committed on Putin’s orders,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in announcing her country’s measures.
The EU steps now under consideration, with a vote expected Thursday, would be the most stringent yet by the 27-nation bloc since Russia invaded its neighbor Feb. 24. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking by video link to the Irish parliament, urged lawmakers to persuade EU partners to enact “sanctions that will really stop Russia’s military machine.”