Zelenskyy at the UN accuses Russian military of war crimes
BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian troops 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 set up at Nuremberg after World War II.
Zelenskyy, appearing via video from Ukraine, told council members that civilians had been shot in the back of the head after being tortured, 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.
Likening the troops' actions to those of Islamic State, Zelenskyy said: "The Russian military and those who gave them orders must be brought to justice immediately for war crimes in Ukraine."
"Anyone who has given criminal orders and carried them out by killing our people will be brought before the tribunal which should be similar to the Nuremberg tribunals," he said.
Over the past few days, grisly images of what appeared to be civilian massacres carried out by Russian forces on the outskirts of Kyiv before they pulled back from the capital, have stirred global revulsion and led Western nations to expel dozens more of Moscow's diplomats and propose further sanctions, including a ban on coal imports from Russia.
Zelenskyy stressed that Bucha was only one place and that there are more with similar horrors.
The Kremlin has denounced the images as fake and suggested the scenes were staged by the Ukrainians. But 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.
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," and said that more horrors may come to light as Russian troops continue to pull back in the north.
"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 of war crimes," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
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 Bucha.
Zelenskyy told the Security Council there was "not a single crime" that Russian troops hadn't committed in Bucha.
"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 Tuesday, 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.
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 AP and the PBS series "Frontline" have jointly verified at least 90 incidents during the war that appear to violate international humanitarian law. The War Crimes Watch Ukraine project includes details of apparent targeted attacks as well as indiscriminate destruction of civilian buildings and infrastructure.
U.S. 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," and that the U.S. and other countries will seek to hold the culprits accountable.