Bucha

Europe pledges further sanctions against Russia amid reports of 'haunting images of atrocities'

The evidence of atrocities emerged against a backdrop of faltering peace talks. If Ukrainians can capitalise on that they can potentially roll back the Russians.” He also urged G7 countries to impose “devastating” sanctions immediately. The country’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said the images from Bucha were “unbearable”. Russia’s actions in Bucha were consistent with more than a century of military practice, said Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. “Anyone saying that Bucha is the result of brutalisation or rogue behaviour is wrong. This was the plan.

International leaders condemned Russian military forces on Sunday following reports of an alleged mass grave and graphic images of civilian killings in ...

Human Rights Watch reviewed two photographs the woman shared showing her facial injuries.On March 6, Russian soldiers in the village of Vorzel, about 50 kilometers northwest of Kyiv, threw a smoke grenade into a basement, then shot a woman and a 14-year-old as they emerged from where they had been sheltering, the report continued. On March 4, Russian soldiers in Bucha rounded up five men, forced them to kneel on the side of the road, pulled their shirts over their heads, and shot one of them in the back of the head, a witness told Human Rights Watch.A woman also told the organization that a Russian soldier repeatedly raped her in a school in the Kharkiv region where she and her family had been sheltering on March 13. This is not a battlefield, it’s a crime scene," she wrote on Twitter. "Mass killings of Ukrainian civilians by #Russia are clear war crimes." The 14-year-old died immediately.In the village of Staryi Bykiv, in the Chernihiv region, Russian forces rounded up at least six men on Feb.27 and later executed them, the mother of one of the men told Human Rights Watch. She was nearby when her son and another man were apprehended and later saw the dead bodies of all six. In another photo, the body of a person is seen toppled over on their bike in the middle of the street. An independent investigation is urgently needed," von der Leyen said on Twitter. "Perpetrators of war crimes will be held accountable." Journalists with the Associated Press reported seeing the bodies of at least 21 people in various places around Bucha. One group of nine, all in civilian clothes, were scattered around a site that residents said Russian troops had used as a base during their occupation, the AP said. The US will be looking into and documenting the alleged war crimes to make sure that relevant institutions, including the State Department, have all the information they need, Blinken said." Journalists also reported evidence of atrocities and shared photos of civilians who had been killed.Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, went live on Twitter Sunday and said the images coming out of Bucha were "unspeakable" and devastating for Ukrainians."While we all have seen many painful videos and pictures in recent weeks since the beginning of the Russian large-scale invasion, nothing can be compared to what we've seen from Bucha," Kuleba said.The images Kuleba shared on Twitter show bloody bodies, some with their hands tied behind their backs with white cloth, and faces half buried in dirt. Russia's Ministry of Defense suggested artillery fire from Ukrainian forces shot after Russian troops withdrew could have resulted in civilian casualties. The most important thing is we can't become numb to this, we can't normalize this," Blinken said. "This is the reality of what's going on every single day as long as Russia's brutality against Ukraine continues, that's why it needs to come to an end."

Analysis: Russian president appears to have operated by a strict playbook in northern Ukraine that has served him well for decades.

The names of Bucha, Mariupol and Kharkiv, may well become a rallying cry for Zelenskiy to that goal. The other fly in Putin’s ointment then, is that perhaps the west may this time stay true to its claims of solidarity with Kyiv and escalate its sanctions regime. During the 2016 battle of Aleppo, Russia seized back rebel-held areas of the city for Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad through a month-long aerial bombing campaign, killing men, women and children. When Russian paratroopers dropped into Hostomel airport, on the outskirts of Bucha, they had initially disappeared from view, according to locals. The Russians had reappeared after a few days, residents said, with fatal consequences. Putin’s attack on the Chechen capital, Grozny, in 1999, was as unsuccessful as the attempt to decapitate Ukraine’s leadership in Kyiv within a few days of his 24 February invasion.