Volodymyr Zelenskiy has given the UN security council a harrowing account of atrocities in his country and demanded that Russian leaders “be brought to justice for war crimes”. The Ukrainian president called for an international tribunal similar to the Nuremberg trials of Nazis after the second world war. Speaking of Russian forces, he said: “There is not a single crime that they would not commit there.”
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said he would “never forget the horrifying images of civilians killed” in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. Speaking at the UN security council in New York, he said the war in Ukraine is “one of the greatest challenges ever” to the “international order”. The UN undersecretary general for political and peacebuilding affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, said allegations of sexual violence perpetrated by Russian forces include “gang-rape and rapes in front of children”.
Displaced residents of Bucha should not yet return to their homes because there are still mines in the area after the Russian withdrawal from the devastated Ukrainian town, its mayor, Anatoliy Fedoruk, said. Fedoruk said about 3,700 civilians had stayed in Bucha throughout the occupation by Russian troops. It had a prewar population of about 37,000.
The UN human rights office spokesperson, Liz Throssell, said all the signs from the Ukrainian town of Bucha pointed towards civilians having been directly targeted and killed. She described the images emerging from the aftermath of Russia’s occupation of the town as “extremely disturbing”.
Israel’s foreign minister, Yair Lapid, has strongly condemned Russia’s “war crimes” in Ukraine in a statement intensifying Israel’s criticism of Russia. Earlier, the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, condemned the killing of civilians in Bucha but stopped short of accusing Russian forces of responsibility.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the evidence from Bucha showed “a deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities” by Russian forces. “The reports are more than credible. The evidence is there for the world to see,” he told reporters.
Scores of Russian diplomats have been expelled from European countries this week in a direct expression of governments’ outrage at the killings of Ukrainian civilians revealed as Moscow’s military forces left. In what amounts to one of the biggest diplomatic breakdowns of recent years, 149 Russian diplomats have been told since Monday they were no longer welcome to stay by governments in Italy, France, Germany and elsewhere.
The Kremlin said allegations that Russian forces committed war crimes by killing civilians in Bucha were a “monstrous forgery” aimed at “denigrating” the Russian army. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that remarks by the the US president, Joe Biden, on Monday calling for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes were unacceptable and unworthy of a US leader.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced that the EU was proposing new sanctions against Russia, including an import ban on coal worth €4bn (£3.3bn) a year. The package will also include a full transaction ban on four key Russian banks, a ban on Russian vessels and Russian operated vessels from accessing EU ports, and targeted export and import bans.
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Nato and G7 foreign ministers meeting on Wednesday and Thursday would discuss the delivery of advanced weapons to Ukraine. Ammunition, medical supplies and “high-end” weapons systems would also be discussed, he said.
A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross has been released after being stopped during an attempt to reach the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol and held in nearby Manhush.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk has said there would be an attempt to open seven humanitarian corridors on Tuesday. The routes would be in the Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.
