Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Russia on Sunday of carrying out a “deliberate massacre” in the town of Bucha, outside of Kyiv, and called on the G7 to impose “devastating” new sanctions on Moscow.
“We are still gathering and looking for bodies, but the number has already gone into the hundreds. Dead bodies lie on the streets. They killed civilians while staying there and when they were leaving these villages and towns,” his ministry quoted him as saying on Twitter.
FM @DmytroKuleba: “We are still gathering and looking for bodies, but the number has already gone into the hundreds. Dead bodies lie on the streets. They killed civilians while staying there and when they were leaving these villages and towns”.
?https://t.co/LJ4v3TgFbd pic.twitter.com/VX3pr1keFa
— MFA of Ukraine ?? (@MFA_Ukraine) April 3, 2022
On Saturday, Ukraine announced that it had recovered all areas around Kyiv and regained control of the capital region for the first time since February 24, after Russian troops had withdrawn from the area north of Kyiv in order to regroup for battles in eastern Ukraine. On the very same day, in the city of Bucha, located 37 kilometres northwest of Kyiv city centre, Reuters journalists saw bodies in civilian clothes lying in the streets, still unburied, with burned-out wrecks of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles all around.
The mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, showed a Reuters team two corpses with white cloth tied around their arms. One corpse appeared to have his hands bound by the white cloth, and to have been shot in the mouth. The mayor explained that the white cloth was what residents were forced to wear on the orders fighters from Chechnya – a region in southern Russia that has deployed troops to Ukraine to support Russian forces – who controlled the area during the month that Russian forces occupied the city.
“Any war has some rules of engagement for civilians. The Russians have demonstrated that they were consciously killing civilians,” Fedoruk said, adding that “they practically got a green light from Putin for a safari and they were shooting Ukrainian people.”
Moscow has previously repeatedly denied Ukrainian claims that it has targeted civilians.
Wladimir Klitschko, a Ukrainian former professional boxer who took up arms to defend his homeland, called the actions of the Russian Military a genocide.
This is Genocide.#Genocide #FreeUkraine #StandWithUkraine #StopTheWar #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/NfLePlWhIl
— Klitschko (@Klitschko) April 3, 2022
In response to the tragic news from Bucha, Minister Kuleba urged the Group of Seven to immediately impose new “devastating” sanctions, which would include an embargo on all energy imports, the closing of all ports to Russian vessels and cargo, and the disconnection of all Russian banks from SWIFT.
Bucha massacre was deliberate. Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can. We must stop them and kick them out. I demand new devastating G7 sanctions NOW:
-Oil, gas, coal embargo
-Close all ports to Russian vessels and goods
-Disconnect all Russian banks from SWIFT pic.twitter.com/oZkCAETCQp
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) April 3, 2022