After the massacre in the Kiev suburb of Bucha, Russia must prepare for the tightening of Western sanctions. “We will decide on further measures in the circle of allies in the coming days,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said late on Sunday. Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht had already put a gas embargo into play. While Ukraine reported 410 bodies in the capital region, Moscow denied any responsibility.
“The murder of civilians is a war crime. We must relentlessly investigate these crimes committed by the Russian armed forces,” Scholz said. “Putin and his supporters will feel the consequences.” EU Council President Charles Michel had previously announced new sanctions. Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) also spoke of “war crimes” for which the Russian army was “responsible”, but did not comment on the issue of sanctions.
Evidence of violence directed against women
Bucha is one of the places around Kiev that have been liberated by the Ukrainian army in recent days. Nearly 300 bodies were found there after the Russian withdrawal, officials said. Many of the dead were wearing civilian clothes and at least one had his hands tied. Apparently, similar crimes may have been committed elsewhere in the capital region. Ukraine’s attorney general, Iryna Venedyktova, said Sunday that 410 bodies had been found at sites around Kiev. Many crimes have been committed or are still being committed. There was also evidence of violence directed against women. Parliamentarian Oleksiy Gontaschenko reported on the naked bodies of women that were found on the side of the road near Kiev. In the town of Irpin, women and girls were shot and then run over by tanks, Mayor Olexander Markuschyn told Deutsche Welle.
“This is genocide. The annihilation of a nation and its people,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told US broadcaster CBS. “All those responsible for war crimes will be found and punished,” he promised in another appearance that night. He decided to introduce a “special legal mechanism” so that crimes could be investigated and prosecuted. The UN Security Council will also deal with the incidents on Tuesday. There will also be new sanctions against Russia, “but that’s not enough”. He also harshly criticized former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. They should come to Bucha “to see where 14 years of surrender to Russia are leading”.
Human Rights Watch: “Manifest War Crimes”
“All these people were shot,” said Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk. “You shot her in the back of the head.” There are cars on the streets where “whole families have been killed: children, women, grandparents, men”. According to the human rights organization “Human Rights Watch” (HRW), several “obvious war crimes” committed by Russian troops have been documented – in addition to Kiev, they were also committed in the regions of Chernihiv in the north and in Kharkiv in the east of parents.
Russia, unsurprisingly, denied responsibility for the atrocities. Any image and film material published by Ukraine in this context constitutes a provocation, the RIA news agency reported, citing the Ministry of Defense in Moscow. “During the period when the settlement was under the control of the Russian armed forces, no resident suffered any act of violence,” said the Defense Ministry in Moscow. The soldiers left the Kiev suburb on Wednesday.
Referring to the dead in Bucha, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram: “The idea behind the ‘Kiev regime’s next crime’ is to disrupt peace negotiations and increase the violence”.
Russia: “Provocation of Ukrainian Radicals”
Russia plans to convene a UN Security Council meeting on Monday over allegations of war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine. This is what Russia’s representative at the UN, Dmitry Polansky, writes on the Telegram platform. At the meeting, the “provocation of Ukrainian radicals” should be discussed.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply shocked” by the photos of Bucha and called for an independent investigation. “You can’t help but see these images as a punch in the gut,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN on Sunday. “More sanctions and EU support are on the way. Slava Ukrajini!” tweeted EU Council President Michel. French President Emmanuel Macron described the images “with hundreds of civilians cowardly murdered in the streets” as “intolerable”. “Russian authorities must answer for these crimes.”
Russian gas import ban difficult
Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen said he was “deeply shaken” by the “terrifying photos” in Butscha. “These crimes against humanity, against everything we stand for, will be punished,” the federal president emphasized on Twitter Sunday night. The Vienna Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already called for a UN investigation. Green politicians and neos called for a tougher approach towards Russia. In the ORF program “Im Zentrum”, however, both green environmental spokesperson Lukas Hammer and former Chancellor Christian Kern (SPÖ) and IV President Georg Knill took a stand against a gas embargo. A complete waiver of Russian gas is “very difficult to impossible,” Hammer said. “Without gas, there would be mass unemployment in Austria in a very short time,” Knill said. Kern expressed “understanding” that Chancellor Nehammer said “that he doesn’t want to do this”.
In Germany, Defense Minister Lambrecht mentioned a gas stop, but referred to clarifications needed within the EU. Economy Minister Robert Habeck confirmed his skepticism in this regard. In addition to personal sanctions, the “fifth sanctions package” will also affect technical goods and the financial market, he told ZDF. Until now, Germany, along with Austria, has been one of the brakes within the EU when it comes to a waiver of Russian gas supplies. On the other hand, the Baltic states announced on Sunday that they had completely stopped using Russian gas at the beginning of the month.
The leader of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, has called for at least a halt to deliveries of coal and oil from Russia. Like Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and her Slovenian counterpart Janez Jansa, he also called for more arms deliveries to Kiev. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would “do everything in my power to kill Putin’s war machine” with tougher sanctions and arms shipments to Kiev. (apa)