This liveblog is now closed but you can follow all the latest developments on our new blog in the link below.
Here is a rundown of what we know so far:
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Ukraine has accused Russian forces of committing war crimes and a “massacre” in Bucha, a town just 30km northwest of the capital Kyiv, after the bodies of unarmed Ukrainian civilians and mass graves were found on Sunday. Bodies of civilians - many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture - were found on the streets after Ukrainian troops reclaimed the town.
- Ukrainian prosecutors said they found 410 bodies in towns near Kyiv, and 140 bodies had been examined on Sunday. Russia denied allegations that its forces had killed civilians as it retreated from war-torn areas of the country.
- Satellite images from Bucha appear to show an approximately 45ft-long trench dug into the grounds of a church where a mass grave has been identified.
- World leaders condemned the killings and called for independent investigations. French president Emmanuel Macron, UN secretary general António Guterres, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, British prime minister Boris Johnson and US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield all publicly condemned Russia’s actions.
- The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, described the killings as “a punch to the gut” and joined western allies in vowing to document the atrocities to hold the perpetrators to account.
- Russia described the situation in Bucha as a “provocation” by Ukraine intended to disrupt peace talks. The Kremlin’s foreign ministry said Russia was seeking a UN security council meeting on the matter. Its defence ministry described the photos and videos as “another staged performance by the Kyiv regime”. Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s UN security council deputy representative, tweeted on Sunday: “In the light of heinous provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha Russia requested a meeting of UN Security Council on Monday April 4.”
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Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned Russian forces as “murderers”, “torturers” and “rapists” after the killings came to light, describing the Kremlin-ordered attack on his country as amounting to genocide . “How did they also become butchers? ... They killed deliberately and with pleasure,” he said in a national address late on Sunday. He vowed to investigate and prosecute all Russian “crimes” in Ukraine.
- Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dymtro Kuleba, said Bucha was a “deliberate massacre” while speaking on Times Radio on Sunday. Describing Russia as “worse than Isis”, he said Russian forces were guilty of murder, torture, rape and looting. He also urged G7 countries to impose “devastating” sanctions immediately.
- Zelenskiy criticised the west’s “policy of concessions to Russia” in the lead up to the war. Describing Ukraine’s past pursuit of Nato membership: “They thought that by refusing Ukraine, they would be able to appease Russia, to convince it to respect Ukraine and live normally next to us ... I invite Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy to visit Bucha and see what the policy of concessions to Russia has led to in 14 years. To see with their own eyes the tortured Ukrainian men and women.”
- Russian forces continued their attacks on other Ukraine cities. Seven people died and 34 were wounded after a residential area in Kharkiv was struck on Sunday, local prosecutors said.
- At least 70% of Chernihiv has been destroyed by Russian forces, the city’s mayor said on Sunday. Vladyslav Atroshenko said the “consequences” of the attacks were severe and mirrored those of other badly damaged cities in Ukraine such as Bucha and Mariupol.
- The capture of Mariupol is a “key objective” of the Russian invasion, UK’s ministry of defence said as heavy fighting continues in the southeastern city.
- Russian missiles struck “critical infrastructure”, most likely a fuel depot, near Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa in the early hours of Sunday but there were no casualties, officials in the city said.
- The European Union should consider a ban on gas imports from Russia, German defence minister Christine Lambrecht has said.
- The huge scale of sexual violence endured by women and girls in Ukraine has begun to emerge as victims recount the abuse they have suffered at the hands of Russian soldiers.
- The United Nations’ human rights office says there have been 3,455 civilian casualties since the war in Ukraine began. The figure includes more than 1,400 deaths and over 2,000 injuries but the actual number is believed to be considerably higher, the agency said in recently published report.
- Zelenskiy appeared in a video message at the Grammy awards, calling for viewers to “fill the silence with your music” and “tell the truth about the war” across social networks and on TV.
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy appeared in a video message at the Grammy awards, calling for viewers to “tell the truth about the war” across social networks and on TV.
“Fill the silence with your music. Fill it today to tell our story. Tell the truth about the war on your social networks, on TV, support us in any way you can any, but not silence. And then peace will come to all our cities the war is destroying.”
Watch the video of Zelenskiy’s address below.
The United Nations’ human rights office says there have been 3,455 civilian casualties since the war in Ukraine began on 24 February.
The figure includes more than 1,400 deaths and over 2,000 injuries but the actual number is believed to be considerably higher, the agency said in recently published report.
Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.
The heaviest casualties continue to be reported from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east.
From 24 Feb—2 April, we recorded 3,455 civilian casualties in context of Russia’s armed attack against #Ukraine: 1,417 killed, incl 121 children; 2,038 injured, incl 171 children, mostly caused by shelling & airstrikes. Actual toll is much higher. Update https://t.co/hA17imOEQW pic.twitter.com/5F56ZGK9Jo
— UNHumanRightsUkraine (@UNHumanRightsUA) April 3, 2022
A quick snap here from US secretary of state, Antony Blinken.
We strongly condemn apparent atrocities by Kremlin forces in Bucha and across Ukraine. We are pursuing accountability using every tool available, documenting and sharing information to hold accountable those responsible.”
We strongly condemn apparent atrocities by Kremlin forces in Bucha and across Ukraine. We are pursuing accountability using every tool available, documenting and sharing information to hold accountable those responsible.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) April 4, 2022
A senior Washington official has slammed Russia’s request to hold a UN security council meeting on Monday, saying the move is designed to “feign outrage.”
Samantha Power, a former US ambassador to the UN, tweeted late on Sunday:
Russia is drawing from the playbook it used for Crimea & Aleppo: forced to defend the indefensible (here, the Bucha atrocities), Russia is calling a UN Security Council meeting so it can feign outrage & call for accountability.
Nobody is buying it.”
Power is the current administrator of the US Agency for International Development.
UN authorities have yet to publicly state whether a Security Council emergency meeting will take place Monday.
Russia is drawing from the playbook it used for Crimea & Aleppo: forced to defend the indefensible (here, the Bucha atrocities), Russia is calling a @UN Security Council meeting so it can feign outrage & call for accountability. Nobody is buying it. https://t.co/7iINdMZljF
— Samantha Power (@PowerUSAID) April 3, 2022
'Fill the silence with your music' Zelenskiy tells Grammys
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has appeared in a video message at the Grammy Awards to ask for support in telling the story of Ukraine’s invasion by Russia.
During the message that aired on the show Sunday, he likened the invasion to a deadly silence threatening to extinguish the dreams and lives of the Ukrainian people.
Our musicians wear body armour instead of tuxedos. They sing to the wounded in hospitals, even to those who can’t hear them ... But the music will break through anyway.”
The Recording Academy, with its partner Global Citizen, prior to the ceremony highlighted a social media campaign called ‘Stand Up For Ukraine’ to raise money and support during the humanitarian crisis.
Fill the silence with your music. Fill it today to tell our story. Tell the truth about the war on your social networks, on TV, support us in any way you can any, but not silence. And then peace will come to all our cities,” Zelenskiy said.
Following his message, John Legend performed his song Free with Ukrainian musicians Siuzanna Iglidan and Mika Newton, and poet Lyuba Yakimchuk, as images from the war were shown on screens behind them.
Updated
What we know about what happened in Bucha, Ukraine
Ukraine has accused Russian forces of committing a “massacre” in Bucha, a town just 30km northwest of the capital Kyiv.
Bodies of civilians - many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture - were found littering some streets after Ukrainian troops reclaimed the town.
This is what we know at this stage about what happened in Bucha, as reported by Agence France-Presse.
Bucha, a commuter town of around 37,000 outside Kyiv, as well as the nearby town of Irpin, saw fierce fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February.
Bucha was occupied by the Russian army on the third day of the war, on February 26, and remained inaccessible for more than a month.
Shelling stopped on Thursday and Ukrainian forces were only able to fully enter the town a few days ago.
AFP journalists on Saturday saw massive holes left by shells in apartment blocks, numerous wrecked cars and streets littered with debris or downed power lines.
Those who stayed in Bucha, trapped by the incessant fighting, were deprived of water and electricity and lived in very cold temperatures.
Witnesses told AFP that they saw Chechen fighters amid the Russian forces.
AFP on Saturday saw the bodies of at least 22 people in civilian clothes on a single street in Bucha.
One of them was on the pavement near a bicycle, others had bags of provisions near them.
On body had his hands tied behind his back and most the bodies were scattered over several hundred metres on one street. Another corpse was found near the station, under a blanket.
The cause of death of these people could not be immediately determined, but at least two of them had large head wounds.
The skin on the faces of the corpses looked waxy, suggesting that they had been there for at least several days.
According to the mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, the victims were killed by Russian forces with a “bullet in the back of the neck”.
The corpses of 57 people were found in a mass grave, the chief of local rescue efforts Serhiy Kaplychniy, said as he showed AFP the trench where the bodies lay.
The mass grave is behind a church in the town’s centre. Some of the bodies were either unburied or partially buried. They were all dressed in civilian clothes.
On Sunday Mayor Fedoruk said 280 people were buried in mass graves because they could not have be buried in cemeteries that were within firing range.
“We found mass graves. We found people with their hands and legs tied up... with bullet holes in the back of their heads,” presidential spokesman Sergiy Nikiforov told the BBC Sunday.
The mayor of Kyiv who went to Bucha on Sunday, Vitaly Klitschko, told AFP that the exact number of victims was not yet known.
“We believe that more than 300 civilians died,” he said. “This is not a war, it is a genocide, a genocide of the Ukrainian population.”
Here are some of the latest images from Ukraine to land on our newswires today.
Interim summary
- Authorities in Ukraine say they have found what “looks exactly like war crimes”, including the bodies of executed civilians and mass graves in the towns of Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel surrounding the capital, as Russians retreated from war-torn areas of the country.
- Ukrainian prosecutors investigating possible war crimes by Russia said they found 410 bodies in towns near Kyiv. Prosecutor General Iryna Venedyktova said 140 of the bodies had been examined on Sunday. Russia has denied allegations that its forces killed civilians.
- World leaders have condemned the killings in Bucha and called for independent investigations. French president Emmanuel Macron, UN secretary general António Guterres, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, British prime minister Boris Johnson and US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield all publicly condemned Russia’s actions.
- The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, described the killings at Bucha as “a punch to the gut” and joined western allies in vowing to document the atrocities to hold the perpetrators to account.
- Russia tried to paint the situation in Bucha as somehow representing a “provocation” by Ukraine intended to disrupt peace talks. The Kremlin’s foreign ministry said Russia was seeking a UN security council meeting on the matter. Its defence ministry described the photos and videos as “another staged performance by the Kyiv regime”. Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s UNSC deputy representative, tweeted on Sunday: “In the light of heinous provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha Russia requested a meeting of UN Security Council on Monday April 4.”
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Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy criticised the west’s “policy of concessions to Russia” as a factor in the lead up to war. Describing Ukraine’s pursuit of Nato membership, he said “optimistic diplomatic statements” were given back at the 2008 summit in Bucharest but noted the “refusal to accept Ukraine into the Alliance was hidden” as well as an “absurd fear of some politicians towards Russia”. “They thought that by refusing Ukraine, they would be able to appease Russia, to convince it to respect Ukraine and live normally next to us ... I invite Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy to visit Bucha and see what the policy of concessions to Russia has led to in 14 years. To see with their own eyes the tortured Ukrainian men and women.”
- Zelenskiy addressed Russian forces as “murderers”, “torturers” and “rapists” after hundreds of bodies of Ukrainian civilians were found on the streets of towns surrounding Kyiv. “How did they also become butchers? ... They killed deliberately and with pleasure,” he said in a national address late on Sunday. He also vowed to investigate and prosecute all Russian “crimes” in Ukraine, saying he had created a “special mechanism” to do so.
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Satellite images of the Ukrainian town of Bucha purport to show an approximately 45ft-long trench dug into the grounds of a church where a mass grave has been identified.
- Seven people died and 34 were wounded after Russian forces struck a residential area in Kharkiv on Sunday, local prosecutors said.
- At least 70% of Chernihiv has been destroyed by Russian attacks, the city’s mayor said on Sunday. Vladyslav Atroshenko said the “consequences” of the attack were severe and mirrored those of other badly damaged cities in Ukraine like Bucha and Mariupol.
- The capture of Mariupol is a “key objective” of the Russian invasion, UK’s ministry of defence has said as heavy fighting continues in the southeastern city.
- Russian missiles struck “critical infrastructure”, most likely a fuel depot, near Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa in the early hours of Sunday but there were no casualties, officials in the city said.
- The European Union should consider a ban on gas imports from Russia, German defence minister Christine Lambrecht has said.
Capture of Mariupol a 'key objective' for Russia, UK MoD says
The UK’s ministry of defence has released its latest intelligence report, suggesting the capture of Mariupol is a key objective of the Russian invasion.
Heavy fighting has continued in Mariupol as Russian forces attempt to take the city.
The city continues to be subject to intense, indiscriminate strikes but Ukrainian Forces maintain a staunch resistance, retaining control in central areas.
Mariupol is almost certainly a key objective of the Russian invasion as it will secure a land corridor from Russia to the occupied territory of Crimea.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 3 April 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 3, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/6U2qEmdx0T
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/tn99P8tmbg
Updated
Zelenskiy criticises west's 'policy of concessions to Russia' in lead up to war
Wrapping up his national address, Zelenskiy spoke of “the political behaviour that allowed this evil to come to our land” and reflected on the 2008 Nato summit in Bucharest.
Today is the fourteenth anniversary of the Nato summit in Bucharest. Then there was a chance to take Ukraine out of the ‘grey zone’ in Eastern Europe. Out of the ‘grey zone’ between Nato and Russia.
Out of the grey zone, in which Moscow thinks they are allowed everything. Even the most dreadful war crimes.”
Zelenskiy spoke of the “optimistic diplomatic statements” made at the time that gave Ukraine hope it could become a member of Nato, adding that in 2008 the “refusal to accept Ukraine into the Alliance was hidden.”
“The absurd fear of some politicians towards Russia was hidden,” he added. “They thought that by refusing Ukraine, they would be able to appease Russia, to convince it to respect Ukraine and live normally next to us.”
During the 14 years since that miscalculation, Ukraine has experienced a revolution and eight years of war in Donbas. And now we are fighting for life in the most horrific war in Europe since World War II.
I invite Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy to visit Bucha and see what the policy of concessions to Russia has led to in 14 years. To see with their own eyes the tortured Ukrainian men and women.”
However, Zelenskiy clarified he was not blaming the west but felt Ukraine has “the right to talk about indecision”.
“We do not blame anyone but the specific Russian military who did this against our people. And those who gave them orders. But we have the right to talk about indecision. About the path to such Bucha, to such Hostomel, to such Kharkiv, to such Mariupol. We have no indecision. No matter whether we are in a certain bloc or non-aligned, we understand one thing: we must be strong.”
Zelenskiy added he also approved a decision to create “a special mechanism of justice” for the investigation of crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine.
The essence of this mechanism is the joint work of national and international experts: investigators, prosecutors and judges. This mechanism will help Ukraine and the world bring to concrete justice those who unleashed or in any way participated in this terrible war against the Ukrainian people and in crimes against our people.”
Everyone guilty of such crimes will be included in a special Book of Torturers, will be found and punished.
All partners of Ukraine will be informed in detail about what happened in the temporarily occupied territory of our state. War crimes in Bucha and other cities during the Russian occupation will also be considered by the UN Security Council on Tuesday.”
Zelenskiy calls Russian forces 'butchers' after hundreds 'killed, tortured, executed'
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addressed Russian forces as “murderers”, “torturers” and “rapists” after hundreds of bodies of Ukrainian civilians were found on the streets of towns surrounding Kyiv.
He also vowed to investigate and prosecute all Russian “crimes” in Ukraine, saying he had created a “special mechanism” to do so.
In a late-night address, the Ukrainian leader said:
Hundreds of people were killed. Tortured, executed civilians. Corpses on the streets ...
Concentrated evil has come to our land. Murderers. Torturers. Rapists. Looters. Who call themselves the army. And who deserve only death after what they did.”
Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters
Addressing the mothers of Russian soldiers, he added:
I want every mother of every Russian soldier to see the bodies of the killed people in Bucha, in Irpin, in Hostomel. What did they do? Why were they killed? What did the man who was riding his bicycle down the street do?
Why were ordinary civilians in an ordinary peaceful city tortured to death? Why were women strangled after their earrings were ripped out of their ears? How could women be raped and killed in front of children?
How could their corpses be desecrated even after death? Why did they crush the bodies of people with tanks? What did the Ukrainian city of Bucha do to your Russia? How did all this become possible?
Russian mothers! Even if you raised looters, how did they also become butchers? ... They killed deliberately and with pleasure.”
Zelenskiy also placed the blame on Russian officials.
I want all the leaders of the Russian Federation to see how their orders are being fulfilled. Such orders. Such a fulfilment. And joint responsibility. For these murders, for these tortures, for these arms torn off by explosions that lie on the streets. For shots in the back of the head of tied people.”
“This is how the Russian state will now be perceived. This is your image,” he added.
“Your culture and human appearance perished together with the Ukrainian men and women to whom you came.”
Powerful address by Zelenskiy in Russian, to Russians.
— Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) April 3, 2022
“This is how the Russian state will now be perceived. This is your image. Your culture and human appearance perished together with the Ukrainian men and women to whom you came.” pic.twitter.com/cQNQOClxbt
Updated
Seven dead, 34 wounded in Russian strikes on Kharkiv: local prosecutor
Seven people died and 34 were wounded after Russian forces struck a residential area in Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv on Sunday, local prosecutors said.
Kharkiv’s regional prosecutor’s office said on Telegram:
On April 3 at around 6pm local time, Russian invaders fired on residential buildings in the Sloboda districts of Kharkiv. As a result, around ten houses and a trolleybus depot were damaged. According to preliminary information, seven people died, 34 were injured, including three children.”
Kharkiv, which lies in north-east Ukraine close to the Russian border, has been heavily damaged since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.
Russian forces also shelled the nearby town of Dergachi, leaving at least three dead and wounding seven, its mayor Vychaeslav Zadorenko said on Facebook.
He said all three victims were civilians.
Six people were also killed and another injured in the eastern Donetsk region by Russian strikes, the head of the regional military administration Pavel Kirilenko said on Telegram.
Earlier on Sunday the governor of the Lugansk region, Sergiy Gaiday, said Russia had shelled a hospital in the eastern town of Rubizhne. At least one person had died, he said.
Satellite images of the Ukrainian town of Bucha purport to show an approximately 45ft-long trench dug into the grounds of a church where a mass grave has been identified.
The images, captured by private US space technology company Maxar Technologies on 31 March, followed previous imagery from 10 March that show signs of excavation on the grounds of the Church of St Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints, Maxar Technologies said.
Reuters journalists who visited Bucha on Saturday saw bodies lying on the streets of the town, 37km (23 miles) northwest of the capital Kyiv. A mass grave at one church was still open, with hands and feet poking through the red clay heaped on top.
Maxar Technologies, which collects and publishes satellite imagery of Ukraine, said the first signs of excavation for a mass grave at the Church of St Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints were seen on 10 March.
“More recent coverage on 31 March shows the grave site with an approximately 45-foot-long trench in the southwestern section of the area near the church,” Maxar said.
The Guardian could not immediately verify the images.
Updated
Russia requests UN meeting over 'provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha'
Russia has requested an emergency UN security council meeting, citing the “provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha” behind the request for talks.
Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s UNSC deputy representative, tweeted on Sunday:
In the light of heinous provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha Russia requested a meeting of UN Security Council on Monday April 4.”
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova added that the meeting is to discuss Kyiv’s attempts to disrupt peace talks and escalate violence with a “provocation” in Bucha.
Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel on Sunday:
Russian Federation requested a meeting of the UN Security Council in connection with the provocation of the Ukrainian military and radicals in the city of Bucha.
The idea behind the next crime of the ‘Kyiv’s regime’ is the disruption of peace negotiations and the escalation of violence.”
In the light of heinous provocation of Ukrainian radicals in #Bucha Russia requested a meeting of UN #SecurityCouncil on Monday April 4
— Dmitry Polyanskiy (@Dpol_un) April 3, 2022
Updated
Kari Paul here, logging off for the day. Below is a summary of the top stories to note in today’s Ukraine conflict, most of which focus on fallout from the atrocities revealed in Bucha, Ukraine, where hundreds of dead civilians have been found.
- World leaders including French president Emmanuel Macron, UN secretary general António Guterres, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield have condemned the killings in Bucha and called for independent investigations.
- Meanwhile, the mayor of Chernihiv said on Sunday at least 70% of the city has been destroyed by Russian attacks.
- Calls have increased to ban or partially embargo gas imports from Russia following evidence of genocide in Ukraine, with Germany notably changing its policy on the subject.
Stay tuned as the Guardian live blogs today’s events, with my colleague Samantha Lock taking over now.
Updated
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has also condemned the “egregious and appalling” killings of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, saying Russia must be held to account.
We strongly condemn the murder of civilians in Ukraine, remain committed to holding the Russian regime accountable,” he tweeted.
Those responsible for these egregious and appalling attacks will be brought to justice.”
We strongly condemn the murder of civilians in Ukraine, remain committed to holding the Russian regime accountable, and will continue to do everything we can to support the people of Ukraine. Those responsible for these egregious and appalling attacks will be brought to justice. https://t.co/YDwJ0n693m
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) April 3, 2022
Satellite images show mass graves outside of Bucha
More harrowing details are emerging about potential war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, with satellite images showing excavations for mass graves in early March.
Ukrainian civilians' bodies have been found littered around Bucha, other areas in NW Kyiv region. A mass grave was found at Church of St. Andrew & Pyervozvannoho All Saints. Satellite images from @Maxar show the first signs of excavation were on March 10. Latest images March 31. pic.twitter.com/6lKxRYEDd7
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) April 3, 2022
Human rights groups have reported evidence of war crimes in Bucha and United Nations officials have called for further investigation.
European calls grow to ban Russian gas amid genocide allegations
In a shift in policy on Sunday, German politicians have indicated the European Union should consider banning Russian gas due to alleged atrocities committed in Ukraine.
Defense minister Christine Lambrecht called for sanctions on Russia in an interview on a German television program on Sunday, clips of which were tweeted from the official defense ministry Twitter account.
The move marks a departure from previous German policy, which tended to oppose such sanctions. Other European officials expressed similar views, with Italian politician Enrico Letta tweeting the same, asking: “How many Bucha before we move to a full oil and gas Russia embargo? Time is over.”
In the UK, rationing Russian gas has also been discussed but thus far has been rejected. Lithuania has ceased all Russian gas imports for domestic needs.
Updated
Ukrainian officials call attention to crimes in Bucha and elsewhere
As calls from international leaders grow to investigate potential war crimes in Bucha, some Ukranian officials are encouraging more attention on the atrocities committed in other cities.
The world leaders are calling for an investigation of the #BuchaMassacre. I support this with my whole heart.
— Inna Sovsun (@InnaSovsun) April 3, 2022
Yet, I also want everyone to remember that #russians still control large territories in #Ukraine. I am afraid the same massacres are happening there right now.
Inna Sovsun, a Ukrainian parliament member, tweeted on Sunday that attacks across the country show signs of similar crimes, and called on more military support to address them.
Others have speculated that it is probable that crimes in the cities of Brovary and Chernihiv are “more heinous that those in Bucha”.
“The only way to prevent thousands of murders and rapes is to help the Ukrainian army regain control over those territories,” Sovsun wrote. “Otherwise, in a month everyone will be calling for justice for victims of yet another massacre.”
Updated
Devastation in Ukraine city of Chernihiv
Vladyslav Atroshenko, mayor of Chernihiv, said on Sunday at least 70% of the city has been destroyed by Russian attacks.
He said the “consequences” of the attack were severe and mirrored those of other badly damaged cities in Ukraine like Bucha and Mariupol.
Ukranian armed forces regained control over the city - for now, but officials fear more assaults.
“The fact that they left does not mean they will not come back tomorrow,” he said of the Russians. “Today we can say it is quiet, there is cleaning, there is demining.”
Atroshenko’s assessment comes after leading rights group Human Rights Watch issued a statement that it had found “several cases of Russian military forces committing laws-of-war violations in Chernihiv as well as other cities like Kharkiv and Kyiv”.
Updated
World leaders continue to respond to potential Russian war crimes
UN secretary general António Guterres on Sunday called for an independent investigation into the mass murder of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine.
I am deeply shocked by the images of civilians killed in Bucha, Ukraine.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) April 3, 2022
It is essential that an independent investigation leads to effective accountability.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy previously called the actions “genocide”, which has been recognized by the UN as a war crime under international law since 1946.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz also called for an investigation into potential war crimes, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, promised in a tweet on Sunday “there will be accountability and justice for this brutality”.
The international uproar follows harrowing footage and reports from Bucha, where hundreds of civilians were reportedly massacred by Russian troops in what Zelenskiy has said “looks like war crimes”.
Updated
More details on atrocities committed in Bucha
Bild reporter Paul Ronzheimer shares harrowing details from the ground in Bucha, where witnesses say Russian soldiers shot civilians execution style, burnt homes, and left bodies strewn in the streets.
We met several eye witnesses in Butscha. This is what Irina told us how her husband got killed 👇 pic.twitter.com/Bi6i3SQ7yD
— Paul Ronzheimer (@ronzheimer) April 3, 2022
The town, which is located 35 miles north-west of Ukraine capital Kyiv, was the site of hundreds of killings. EU and US officials are investigating the incidents for evidence of war crimes.
Updated
Macron: Russia will “have to answer” for crimes
World leaders are continuing to respond to the alleged war crimes revealed in Ukraine today, with French president Emmanuel Macron stating on Sunday that Russia “will have to answer for the crimes committed against Ukrainian civilians in Bucha”.
Macron says Russia will have to answer for the crimes committed against Ukrainian civilians in Bucha
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) April 3, 2022
Macron has in the past spoken with Putin on the phone regarding the Ukraine conflict, a move some have criticized as being too soft on the Russian leader.
Hello readers, Kari Paul here for the Guardian US, taking over the live blog for the day. Stay tuned for more updates.
Wladimir Klitschko – former heavyweight boxing champion and brother of Kyiv mayor Vitaliy Klitschko – posted an upsetting video on Twitter that appeared to document the civilian killings in the town of Bucha.
In the film, he says:
That’s exactly what the Russian regime, Putin’s regime, the Russian army is doing. Killing civilians with tied hands behind their back and with a shot in their head.”
WARNING: this video contains disturbing images.
That’s me, Jenn Selby, signing off. My colleague Kari Paul will be taking over.
Updated
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy awarded injured Ukrainian service members with medals for courage at a military hospital in Kyiv on Sunday.
Updated
Ukrainian investigators find more than 400 bodies in towns near Kyiv
Reuters reports that Ukrainian prosecutors investigating possible war crimes by Russia have found 410 bodies in towns near Kyiv.
Prosecutor General Iryna Venedyktova said via a televised appearance on Sunday that 140 of them had been examined.
Russia has denied allegations that its forces killed civilians in the town of Bucha near Kyiv.
Updated
Civilian murders 'more evidence of Putin's war crimes', says Johnson
UK prime minister Boris Johnson said the murder of innocent civilians in Irpin and Bucha were “yet more evidence that Putin and his army are committing war crimes in Ukraine”.
He said the Russian president’s invasion was failing and Ukrainian forces’ resolve had “never been stronger”.
Johnson stressed he would “do everything in my power to starve Putin’s war machine”, and called for the international criminal court’s war crimes investigation to continue, adding: “We will not rest until justice is served.”
Updated
Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has declared that the UK will “not rest” until those responsible for atrocities in Ukraine have faced justice.
Russia, she said, will not be allowed to cover up its involvement in “appalling acts” carried out on innocent civilians with “cynical disinformation”.
In a statement on Sunday, following attacks in the towns of Irpin and Bucha, Truss said:
As Russian troops are forced into retreat, we are seeing increasing evidence of appalling acts by the invading forces in towns such as Irpin and Bucha. Their indiscriminate attacks against innocent civilians during Russia’s illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine must be investigated as war crimes. We will not allow Russia to cover up their involvement in these atrocities through cynical disinformation and will ensure that the reality of Russia’s actions are brought to light.”
Updated
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been speaking on the US political talkshow Face the Nation, accusing Russia of trying to wipe out Ukraine and its people, and calling for the Russian president Vladimir Putin and his military commanders to be held accountable for atrocities allegedly committed by withdrawing Russian troops.
“This is genocide, the elimination of the whole nation and the people,” the Ukraine president told the host of the CBS show, Margaret Brennan, speaking through an interpreter.
“We are the citizens of Ukraine, we have more than 100 nationalities. This is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities.”
The emerging images of Ukraine citizens lying dead in the streets, he said, were abhorrent.
“When we find people with hands tied behind their back and decapitated, such things I don’t understand. I don’t comprehend the kids who were killed and tortured. It wasn’t enough just to kill, for those criminals? Maybe they wanted to take gold, or washing machines as they were killing, but they were also torturing them as they did this.”
About holding the perpetrators accountable for war crimes, Zelenskiy added: “It wouldn’t be fair to take only [Putin]. All the military commanders, everyone who gave instructions and orders should be punished adequately.”
He would not say what he believed the punishment should be, but said: “Everything has to be fair and according to justice, as the civilised world will decide. We believe in justice, in the justice of the western world.”
Zelenskiy said he would be willing to meet Putin for dialogue only after a ceasefire in Ukraine.
“It’s difficult to say how, after all what has been done, we can have any kind of negotiations with Russia. That’s on the personal level. But as a president, I have to do it,” he said.
“There is no any other way but dialogue if we don’t want hundreds of thousands or millions to die [but] I can’t even have a meeting when the shelling is going on. So first, the ceasefire. Then we can have a meeting.”
Updated
Summary
The time in Kyiv is 6pm. Here is a round-up of today’s headlines:
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President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s spokesman has said authorities in Ukraine have found what “looks exactly like war crimes”, including the bodies of executed civilians and mass graves, as Russians retreated from war-torn areas of the country.
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Growing evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine are “a punch to the gut”, the US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Sunday, promising that America would join its allies in documenting the atrocities to hold the perpetrators accountable.
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European leaders have condemned the killings of unarmed civilians in Bucha and the surrounding areas of Kyiv, while vowing to impose further sanctions against Russia.
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A leading rights group said on Sunday it had documented what it described as “apparent war crimes” committed by Russian military forces against civilians in Ukraine.
- A senior official at the Ukrainian president’s office said on Sunday that a fifth package of sanctions should be imposed on Russia, targeting all its banks, closing ports to its ships and imposing an embargo on all trade.
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Russian missiles struck “critical infrastructure”, most likely a fuel depot, near Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa in the early hours of Sunday but there were no casualties, officials in the city said.
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Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and a number of other authorities have accused Russian troops of leaving behind mines and other explosives in their retreat of the Kyiv region. In Irpin, crews have found 643 explosive objects.
- Several Russian rockets have hit Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Mykolaiv, Anton Gerashchenko, an aide to the country’s interior ministry, said on Sunday. Gerashchenko said in a social media post that local authorities had reported the attack.
- Russia has specifically been accused by Ukraine’s attorney general of using children as “human shields” while regrouping its forces, as the first witness accounts from the newly liberated town of Bucha, north-west of Kyiv, emerge.
- Zelenskiy repeated his warning that Russian troops want to capture the Donbas and the south of Ukraine. In his nightly video address, the Ukraine president said “we are aware that the enemy has reserves to increase pressure in the east” but complained that western allies had not sent enough anti-missile systems.
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Missiles struck the southern port city of Odesa early on Sunday morning. “Critical infrastructure facilities” were hit, officials said.
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Work on evacuating people with the help of the Red Cross from Mariupol was set to continue on Sunday with buses attempting to come close to the besieged city, the Ukrainian deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
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Lithuanian film director Mantas Kvedaravicius was killed on Saturday in Mariupol, a Ukrainian city whose fate he had documented for many years, according to the Ukrainian defence ministry’s information agency and a colleague.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. My colleague Jenn Selby will be along shortly to continue bringing you all the latest news from Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Two Ukrainian officials allege that Russian troops have committed war crimes as they retreat from previously occupied areas such as Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin.
It was, said Taras Schevchenko, like a scene from a film.
At 6am on the morning of 24 February, from the vantage point of the kitchen window of his fifth storey apartment overlooking Gostomel airport, on the northern outskirts of the Ukrainian town of Bucha, Schevchenko watched as around 20 Russian helicopters flew into vision, spilling paratroopers onto the tarmac below.
“I felt as if I was in the movies, you know, I saw all the helicopters, I even saw the faces of those paratroopers.”
This was the moment that the war began for Bucha, a town 35 miles north-west from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, which is swiftly becoming synonymous with the worst atrocities of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
The events that unfolded over the following days, Schevchenko, 43, said, were unimaginable.
Updated
Growing evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine are “a punch to the gut”, the US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Sunday, promising that America would join its allies in documenting the atrocities to hold the perpetrators accountable.
A retreat of Russian forces around Kyiv has revealed evidence of atrocities against civilians as Ukrainian troops and journalists have moved back into a broad swathe of suburbs and towns around the capital.
“We can’t become numb to this. We can’t normalize this. This is the reality of what’s going on every single day as long as Russia’s brutality against Ukraine continues,” Blinken said on CNN’s State of the Union.
“You can’t help but see these images as a punch to the gut. We said before Russia’s aggression we thought it was likely that they would commit atrocities. Since the aggression we’ve come out and said we believe that Russian forces have committed war crimes, and we’ve been working to document that to provide the information that we have to relevant institutions and organizations that will put all of this together.
“There needs to be accountability for it,” he added.
European leaders have condemned the killings of unarmed civilians in Bucha and the surrounding areas of Kyiv, while vowing to impose further sanctions against Russia.
The head of the European Council, Charles Michel, said he was shocked by “haunting images of atrocities committed by [the] Russian army in liberated region of Kyiv”, adding that “further EU sanctions and support are on their way”.
Germany’s vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, condemned the killings of civilians in the town of Bucha as a “terrible war crime [that] cannot go unanswered” and called for a strengthening of sanctions. The country’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said the images from Bucha were “unbearable”.
Germany’s foreign minister said on Sunday Russia must pay for its “war crimes” in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, just outside the capital, in the form of more severe sanctions, denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “uninhibited violence”.
The mayor of Bucha said on Saturday that 300 residents had been killed during a month-long occupation by the Russian army. Victims were seen by Reuters in a mass grave and still lying on the streets.
“The images from Bucha are unbearable, Putin’s uninhibited violence is extinguishing innocent families and knows no boundaries,” Baerbock wrote on Twitter.
“Those responsible for these war crimes must be made accountable. We will tighten the sanctions against Russia and will assist Ukraine even more in defending itself.”
The Russian defence ministry in Moscow did not immediately reply to a request for comment when asked on Sunday about bodies found in Bucha, Reuters reported.
Updated
A senior official at the Ukrainian president’s office said on Sunday that a fifth package of sanctions should be imposed on Russia, targeting all its banks, closing ports to its ships and imposing an embargo on all trade.
Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of Ukraine’s president’s office, said in comments broadcast on television that the sanctions should be imposed over what Ukraine says were atrocities carried out by Russia in the town of Bucha near Kyiv.
Russia has so far not commented publicly on the allegations. Moscow has previously denied Ukrainian allegations that it has targeted civilians or carried out possible war crimes, Reuters reported.
The Kremlin said on Sunday it is not possible to completely isolate Russia as the west continues piling sanctions on Moscow over its military operation in Ukraine, AFP reports.
“There can be no complete vacuum or isolation of Russia, it is technologically impossible in the modern world,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian state TV.
The world is “much larger than Europe”, he said, adding: “Sooner or later we will have to build a dialogue, whether some overseas want it or not.”
Western capitals hit Russia with unprecedented economic sanctions after Moscow moved troops into Ukraine on 24 February. There are also travel bans and asset freezes on a number of government figures, including President Vladimir Putin.
Speaking about the possibility of Putin meeting Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Peskov said it would be “hypothetically possible” but would require a written document agreed by both sides at peace negotiations with Kyiv, AFP reported.
For the meeting to take place, Peskov said the delegations must produce a “specific document”.
“Not a set of ideas, but a specific written document,” he added.
Updated
Germany on Sunday condemned the killings of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha as a “terrible war crime” and called for fresh EU sanctions against Russia, AFP reports.
“This terrible war crime cannot go unanswered,” Robert Habeck, the country’s vice- chancellor and economy minister, told German newspaper Bild the day after the bodies of nearly 300 civilians were found in mass graves after Russian troops withdrew, according to local Ukrainian officials.
“I think that a strengthening of sanctions is called for. That’s what we are preparing with our EU partners,” Habeck added.
The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said the images from Bucha were “unbearable”.
Updated
The UK government has ruled out rationing energy in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the transport secretary, Grant Shapps.
His comments came after Labour’s Jonathan Reynolds said the government should consider rationing oil and gas – but later changed his position.
Asked on BBC One’s Sunday Morning programme if it is a “good idea” for the UK to look into energy rationing, Shapps said: “No, I don’t.”
Pressed on whether he can “completely” rule out such a move in the UK, the he added: “Yes, I can. It’s not the route that we want to go down.”
Reynolds, the shadow business and energy secretary, previously told the same programme that the government should be making plans in private to ration gas and oil.
But speaking on Times Radio an hour later, Reynolds appeared to U-turn on his position, saying: “That would be a disaster for households and for businesses.”
Updated
The EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, says she is “appalled” by reports of “unspeakable horrors” in areas where Russia has withdrawn, and said an independent investigation is urgently needed.
Appalled by reports of unspeakable horrors in areas from which Russia is withdrawing.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) April 3, 2022
An independent investigation is urgently needed.
Perpetrators of war crimes will be held accountable.
Updated
Welcome hubs are being set up at airports, ports and train stations across England to welcome Ukrainian refugees, the government has announced, as pressure mounts on ministers to dramatically overhaul the system by which they can apply for sanctuary in the UK.
Nearly £2m is to be spent on 31 hubs across 27 local authorities, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said. Hubs are already up and running at airports including at Luton, Gatwick, Stansted, Birmingham, Manchester, and at St Pancras International train station in London.
The centres will provide food, clothing and sanitary products to arrivals, act as a space for matched families to meet one another and help Ukrainians travel onward to their accommodation. Emergency £200 cash grants will also be available for those who need them.
Updated
A leading rights group said on Sunday it had documented what it described as “apparent war crimes” committed by Russian military forces against civilians in Ukraine.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement saying it had found “several cases of Russian military forces committing laws-of-war violations” in Russian-controlled regions such as Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv, Reuters reported.
The statement, published in Warsaw, came one day after dead civilians were found lying scattered through the streets of the Ukrainian country town of Bucha, three days after the Russian army pulled back after a month-long occupation of the area 30km (20 miles) north-west of Kyiv.
Asked about separate war crime allegations on 1 March, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters: “We categorically deny this.” He also dismissed as fakes allegations of Russian strikes on civilian targets and the use of cluster bombs and vacuum bombs.
Updated
From Mykolaiv to Kyiv and Kharkiv, second-hand cars, pickup trucks and minivans bought in Britain and still bearing UK number plates are appearing on the frontline of the war in Ukraine.
The incongruous sight is thanks to a fighters’ fund established by Serhiy Prytula, 40, a Ukrainian actor and comedian, who made his name with a Little Britain-style sketch show Faina Yukraina (Nice Ukraine) but now acts as an alternative quartermaster to the Ukrainian armed forces.
The British vehicles are attractively priced, roughly half the cost of their equivalent makes on mainland Europe, as right-hand-drive cars are not in high demand internationally, according to Prytula, speaking from his office in his headquarters in Kyiv, a six-storey office building taken over for the purposes of acting as a collection and distribution centre for donations.
Updated
Several Russian rockets have hit Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Mykolaiv, Anton Gerashchenko, an aide to the country’s interior ministry, said on Sunday.
Gerashchenko said in a social media post that local authorities had reported the attack.
Russian forces have attacked Ukraine’s southern ports including Odesa, Mykolaiv and Mariupol as they try to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea and establish a land corridor from Russia to Crimea, the peninsula Russia seized in 2014.
It comes as Reuters reported that two blasts were heard in the Russian city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine on Sunday, days after Russian authorities accused Ukrainian forces of striking a fuel depot there.
The cause of the explosions was not immediately clear. One resident said the blasts were so powerful that they rattled the windows of her home.
Updated
Russia 'worse than Isis' for killing civilians 'out of anger', says Ukraine
Ukraine’s foreign minister has said Russian troops executed civilians while withdrawing from regions “out of anger and just because they wanted to kill”.
Dmytro Kuleba branded Russia “worse than Isis” and said it is possible its military actions could amount to genocide.
Speaking to Times Radio, he said:
We understand they were killing civilians while leaving, while withdrawing, while staying there in this town of Bucha and also in other towns and villages in key regions, but also while withdrawing from them out of anger and just because they wanted to kill.
There was no good reason for them. These were not guerrillas, they were not people opposing them. Russia is worse than Isis, full stop.
He added the situation in de-occupied regions, where looted houses and killed civilians have been reported, “ruins [him] inside”. He said:
It remains to be seen based on the evidence collected whether these crimes will qualify for the crime of genocide, but I would like to make it clear that since the very beginning of the aggression, we hear from Russia and from Russian President Vladimir Putin that he denies the rights of Ukrainians to have their own identity and have our own state, so in the end of the collection of all evidence, I do not exclude the possibility of genocide.
Updated
Ukrainian grain exports in March were a quarter of February levels, due to the Russian invasion, the economy ministry said on Sunday.
March grain shipments overseas included 1.1m tonnes of corn, 309,000 tonnes of wheat, and 118,000 tonnes of sunflower oil, the ministry added.
Ukraine was the world’s fourth-largest grain exporter in the 2020-21 season, according to International Grains Council data, with most of its commodities shipped out via the Black Sea, Reuters reported.
But with war raging along much of the coast, traders are being forced to transport more grain by rail.
Updated
UK: attacks on civilians in Ukraine 'must be investigated as war crimes'
Allegations of attacks against civilians during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must be investigated as war crimes, Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said, adding that the UK would fully support any such move by the international criminal court.
“As Russian troops are forced into retreat, we are seeing increasing evidence of appalling acts by the invading forces in towns such as Irpin and Bucha,” Truss said in a statement, referring to towns near Kyiv.
“Their indiscriminate attacks against innocent civilians during Russia’s illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine must be investigated as war crimes.”
Russia has previously denied targeting civilians and rejected allegations of war crimes in what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Updated
Lithuanian film director Mantas Kvedaravicius was killed on Saturday in Mariupol, a Ukrainian city whose fate he had documented for many years, according to the Ukrainian defence ministry’s information agency and a colleague.
“While trying to leave Mariupol, Russian occupiers killed Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravicius,” the agency tweeted on Sunday. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
“We lost a creator well known in Lithuania and in the whole world, who until the very last moment, in spite of danger, worked in Russia-occupied Ukraine,” the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nausėda, said on Sunday.
Kvedaravicius, 45, was best known for his conflict-zone documentary Mariupolis, which premiered at the 2016 Berlin international film festival.
While trying to leave #Mariupol, the 🇷🇺 occupiers killed Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravičius, who is the author of the documentary Mariupolis.
— ArmyInform (@armyinformcomua) April 2, 2022
RIP #StopRussia #RussianWarCrimes pic.twitter.com/5EfZ9jEWQU
The film paints a portrait of Mariupol, a strategic port is in the breakaway region of Donetsk where pro-Russian fighters have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014.
Kvedaravicius was born in 1976, studied at Vilnius University and got a degree in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge, according to the Lithuanian president’s office.
“Mantas Kvedaravicius was murdered today in Mariupol, with a camera in his hands, in this shitty war of evil, against the whole world,” Russian film director Vitaly Mansky, founder of the festival Artdocfest in which Kvedaravicius was a participant, said on Facebook.
Updated
Black clouds of smoke billowed over the strategically important Black Sea port city of Odesa after an early-morning airstrike by Russia.
Ukrainian officials said the missiles hit critical infrastructure but there were no casualties.
Russian troops are “amassing their forces” to concentrate military attacks in eastern Ukraine because they failed in other areas, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s spokesperson has said.
Sergey Nikiforov told the BBC’s Sunday Morning show that Vladimir Putin’s soldiers were “regrouping” and preparing to “encircle our military in Donbas”.
He said:
They’re pulling back in some regions … they’re pulling back to Belarus, to Russia, they’re regrouping and then they’re aimed to strike at Donbas. They’re amassing their forces. They’re preparing to concentrate their efforts in the east.
The only part of Ukraine where they are having some progress is the east.
Updated
Russian missiles struck “critical infrastructure”, most likely a fuel depot, near Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa in the early hours of Sunday but there were no casualties, officials in the city said.
Odesa is a key Black Sea port and the main base for Ukraine’s navy. It has been a focus for Russian forces because if it is taken it would allow Moscow to build a land corridor to Transnistria, a Russian-speaking breakaway region of Moldova that hosts Russian troops.
Russia’s defence ministry said missile strikes by its military destroyed an oil refinery and three fuel storage facilities near Odesa on Sunday, adding that the facilities were used by Ukraine to supply its troops near the city of Mykolaiv.
Updated
Russian actions in Ukraine 'look exactly like war crimes'
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s spokesman has said authorities in Ukraine have found what “looks exactly like war crimes”, including the bodies of executed civilians and mass graves, as Russians retreated from war-torn areas of the country.
Sergey Nikiforov told the BBC’s Sunday Morning show the scenes that have been discovered in de-occupied territories such as Bucha are “really hard to describe”.
He said:
We found mass graves. We found people with their hands and with their legs tied up … and with shots, bullet holes, in the back of their head.
They were clearly civilians and they were executed.
We found half-burned bodies as if somebody tried to hide their crimes but they didn’t have enough time to do it properly.
He added that Ukrainian troops have begun clearing the areas and they appear to be free of Russian soldiers.
Asked whether the scenes appear to amount to war crimes, Nikiforov said:
It looks, I have to be careful with my wording, but it looks exactly like war crimes.
Updated
Explosions seen in Odesa
The AFP photographer Bülent Kılıç has filed images from the strategically important Black Sea port of Odesa, where airstrikes hit on Sunday morning, according to an interior ministry official. Kyiv had warned that Russia was trying to consolidate its troops in the south.
Updated
Labour’s Jonathan Reynolds has said the UK has “not yet met the scale of the challenge” in taking in Ukrainian refugees, when compared with other Nato countries.
The shadow business secretary told Sky News:
There’s been a huge response from the British people around this... people signing into the Homes for Ukraine scheme, the worry is how is that feeding through on the ground?
I almost think we’re struggling to understand the sheer scale of this - I mean, the figures of people [refugee intake] in Poland and Romania alone.
These are levels of movements of people in Europe that we just haven’t seen for decades.
And I think when you see what other countries are coping with, and doing, it’s hard to say that as of yet we have met the scale of that challenge.
Work on evacuating people with the help of the Red Cross from Mariupol will continue on Sunday with buses attempting to come close to the besieged city, the Ukrainian deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
“Seven buses will try to get closer to Mariupol, accompanied by the International Committee of the Red Cross,” Vereshchuk said in an online video post.
There would be 17 buses prepared to evacuate people from Mariupol and Berdiansk, she said, according to the Reuters news agency.
Hello. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be bringing you all the latest news throughout today.
Updated
Ninety-nine years and eight months old, Anna Bahatelya has survived every ordeal a tumultuous century of Ukrainian history has thrown at her.
Born in August 1922, four months before the proclamation of the Soviet Union, Bahatelya lived through the Holodomor, when Joseph Stalin’s regime visited an artificial famine on large areas of Ukraine by confiscating its grain stocks. She survived the second world war, even after spending two years in a Nazi slave camp in Austria.
She has outlived the Soviet Union and then made it through the difficult 1990s, when the Ukrainian economy left many in poverty. This January she survived a vicious bout of Covid, despite being unvaccinated. Now, four months short of her century, she faces yet another challenge: Vladimir Putin’s war on her country.
“Now again, the people are suffering,” she said at her home on the outskirts of Kyiv, where she lives with her 69-year-old daughter, Olha Punyk.
Summary
- Ukrainian troops have retaken the entire Kyiv region, but they have discovered widespread evidence of what the Kyiv government says are war crimes committed by Russian forces. This includes bodies found in the streets, evidence of killings of civilians, mass graves and murdered children.
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Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and a number of other authorities have accused Russian troops of leaving behind mines and other explosives in their retreat of the Kyiv region. In Irpin, crews have found 643 explosive objects.
- Russia has specifically been accused by Ukraine’s attorney general of using children as “human shields” while regrouping its forces, as the first witness accounts from the newly liberated town of Bucha, north-west of Kyiv, emerge.
- Zelenskiy repeated his warning that Russian troops want to capture the Donbas and the south of Ukraine. In his nightly video address, the Ukraine president said “we are aware that the enemy has reserves to increase pressure in the east” but complained that western allies had not sent enough anti-missile systems.
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Missiles struck the southern port city of Odesa early on Sunday morning. “Critical infrastructure facilities” were hit, officials said.
- Russian chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky has said Russia’s position on Crimea and Donbas remains unchanged and that peace talks had not progressed enough for a leaders’ meeting.
I’m now handing over to my colleague in London, Tom Ambrose.
Russian lawmakers will propose measures seeking punishment for the implementation of sanctions on Russia’s territory, according to Reuters.
Here is some more detail from the Reuters report:
Andrei Klishas, a senior lawmaker, wrote on Telegram: “My colleagues from the State Duma and I have finished the work and on Monday we will introduce amendments to the Criminal Code for the implementation of restrictive measures (sanctions) imposed by foreign states on the territory of the Russian Federation.
“We look forward to prompt consideration of the amendments by the State Duma.”Klishas did not specify how Russia would identify or punish those who implemented sanctions.
Russian lawmakers in early March passed amendments to the code making the spread of “fake” information an offence punishable by fines or jail terms. They imposed fines for public calls for sanctions against Russia.
Russia says peace talks not ready for leaders' meeting
Russian chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky has said Russia’s position on Crimea and Donbas remains unchanged and that peace talks had not progressed enough for a leaders’ meeting.
Medinsky’s comments appear to be a rebuttal of earlier reports suggesting Moscow had “verbally” agreed to key Ukrainian proposals.
A Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia told media on Saturday that Russia had “given an official answer to all positions, which is that they accept the (Ukrainian) position, except for the issue of Crimea (which was annexed by Russia in 2014).”
In a post on Telegram, Medinsky wrote: “The draft agreement is not ready for submission to a meeting at the top. I repeat again and again: Russia’s position on Crimea and Donbas remains UNCHANGED.”
Updated
Regional administration spokesperson Sergey Bratchuk has told Ukraine’s public broadcaster that one of Odesa’s “critical infrastructure facilities” was struck this morning, according to Reuters. “We hope there will be no casualties,” Bratchuk said.
Missiles struck the southern port city in the early hours of Sunday, the city council said in an online post.
The retreat of Russian forces around Kyiv has left horrifying evidence of atrocities against civilians littered across the region’s suburbs and towns, turned into hellish war zones by Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
Here is the Guardian’s latest report:
Updated
Some more detail has emerged about the explosions heard in Odessa this morning.
Anton Herashchenko, adviser to the interior minister, wrote on his Telegram account that Odessa was attacked from the air.
“Fires were reported in some areas. Some of the missiles were shot down by air defence,” he said.
A soldier near the site of one of the strikes told AFP it was likely a rocket or a missile.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Russia was preparing “powerful strikes” in the south.
The UK Ministry of Defence has released its latest analysis of the situation in Ukraine.
- Russian naval forces maintain their distant blockade of the Ukrainian coast in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, preventing Ukrainian resupply by sea.
- Russia still retains the capability to attempt an amphibious landing but such an operation is likely to be increasingly high risk due to the time Ukrainian forces have had to prepare.
- Reported mines within the Black Sea pose a serious risk to maritime activity. Though the origin of such mines remains unclear and disputed, their presence is almost certainly due to Russian naval activity in the area and demonstrates how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is affecting neutral and civilian interests.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 3 April 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 3, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/YYuVQArcF3
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/1Katetgz7q
Updated
Series of explosions heard in southern port city of Odesa
Multiple journalists are reporting a series of explosions in the southern port city of Odesa this morning.
Black smoke billows into the sky above Odessa, after a series of loud explosions were heard this morning about 0600. pic.twitter.com/mQlebD71m0
— Richard Gaisford (@richardgaisford) April 3, 2022
Loud explosions in downtown Odessa right now. My hotel room windows just shook. Not clear what that was.
— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) April 3, 2022
A Reuters witness also heard a series of explosions and saw smoke rising. The cause is unclear.
It’s feared Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port and the base of its navy headquarters, could face heavier Russian attacks as its forces focus on the south. The Sunday Times reports this morning that British prime minister Boris Johnson wants to arm Ukraine with anti-ship missiles to prevent Russian warships from advancing on the city.
Updated
Key points from Zelenskiy's latest address
Here is a recap of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy address late last night.
- Russia aims to “capture both the Donbas and the south of Ukraine”. Zelenskiy said Ukrainian armed forces had regained control of areas in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions. However he said that Russia has reserves to increase pressure in the east of the country. “We are strengthening our defences in the eastern direction and in Donbas… What is the goal of Russian troops? They want to capture both the Donbas and the south of Ukraine.”
- Ukrainians cannot “cherish empty hopes” that Russian troops will simply leave. Peace will only be achieved if Ukrainians work “in hard battles, and in parallel, in negotiations”. The “global security architecture has failed”.
- Ukraine has “not yet received enough modern western anti-missile systems”. Zelenskiy said western allies had not given sufficient modern anti-missile systems, nor given aircraft. He added: “Every Russian missile that hits our cities, and every bomb dropped on our people, on our children, only adds black paint to the history that will describe everyone on whom the decision depended.”
- British prime minister Boris Johnson has agreed “tangible” defence support. Zelenskiy said he had “a meaningful, pleasant conversation” with Johnson, in which they agreed on a new defensive support package for Ukraine. “We also agree on the strengthening of sanctions against Russia,” he said.
- Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán was “virtually the only one in Europe to openly support Mr Putin.” The whole of Europe is trying to stop the war, to restore peace, Zelenskiy said. “Then why is Budapest opposed to the whole of Europe, to all civilised countries? For what?” Zelenskiy said he had spoken frankly about Orbán. “This is called the honesty that Mr Orban lacks. He may have lost it somewhere in his contacts with Moscow,” he said.
- Promised justice for civilians injured while protesting against Russia. He praised the “courage and resilience” of those defending Ukraine, including “heroic Mariupol”, and residents in the town of Enerhodar, in the south, who he said were fired at by Russians after protesting against the invasion. “There will be an answer for each wounded person,” he said.
Updated
Images sent by news wires show scenes of devastation in the newly liberated city of Bucha.
The city is heavily destroyed and littered with corpses, reports AFP. The bodies of at least 20 men in civilian clothes, one of whom had his hands tied, were found lying in a single street.
Witnesses have told the Observer of alleged war crimes against civilians in Bucha. In one account, a 33-year-old mother and her two sons, eight and four, were shot dead by troops in a Russian armoured vehicle, along with a 62-year-old man, as they had sought to flee in two cars.
Hello, it’s Rebecca Ratcliffe with you as we continue our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. Here are some of the main developments of the last hour so you can get up to speed:
- Ukrainian troops have retaken the entire Kyiv region, but they have discovered widespread evidence of what the Kyiv government says are war crimes committed by Russian forces. This includes bodies found in the streets, evidence of killings of civilians, mass graves and murdered children.
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Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and a number of other authorities have accused Russian troops of leaving behind mines and other explosives in their retreat of the Kyiv region. In Irpin, crews have found 643 explosive objects.
- Russia has specifically been accused by Ukraine’s attorney general of using children as “human shields” while regrouping its forces, as the first witness accounts from the newly liberated town of Bucha, north-west of Kyiv, emerge.
- Zelenskiy repeated his warning that Russian troops want to capture the Donbas and the south of Ukraine. In his nightly video address, the Ukraine president said “we are aware that the enemy has reserves to increase pressure in the east” but complained that western allies had not sent enough anti-missile systems.
- Poland’s deputy prime minister has accused France and Germany of being too close to Russia. In an interview with a German paper on Sunday, Jaroslaw Kaczynski said “the German government did not want to see what Russia was doing under Putin and we see the result today.”
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Ukraine’s peace negotiator reportedly said that Russia ‘“verbally” accepts the Kyiv’s position on peace talks, AFP reported, except for the issue of Crimea. Moscow had also agreed that a referendum on the neutral status of Ukraine “will be the only way out of this situation.”
- Turkey is the likeliest venue for peace talks between Zelenskiy and Vladimir Putin, Interfax Ukraine has reported.
- A Red Cross convoy heading to Mariupol will try again to evacuate civilians from the besieged port as Russian forces appeared to be regrouping for new attacks in the south-east.
- Maksim Levin, a Ukrainian photographer, was also found dead near Kyiv. The defence ministry said Levin, whose work appeared in reports from the BBC and Reuters, had been shot twice by Russian soldiers.
- The UK said authorities were working to collect evidence of Russian war crimes. Liz Truss, Britain’s foreign secretary, tweeted that she was looking at new information coming out of the Kyiv region.
- The Baltic states have halted all Russian oil imports, and are encouraging the rest of the European Union to follow suit.
- UK military intelligence says Russia has still not been able to destroy Ukraine’s air force and air defences. This failure has “seriously hampered their efforts to gain broad control of the air, which in turn has significantly affected their ability to support the advance of their ground forces on a number of fronts”.
