3/31/2023 3:20 pm (act. 3/31/2023 3:30 pm)
Selenskyk (2nd from left) with colleagues from Slovenia, Moldova, Croatia and Slovakia ©APA/AFP
On the anniversary of the Bucha massacre, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the small Ukrainian town along with European colleagues. “Russian evil will subside,” he said on Friday in the presence of the heads of government of Croatia, Slovenia and Slovakia and the president of the Republic of Moldova. “The struggle to establish a free world is taking place in Ukraine. We will win for sure,” said the Ukrainian president.
“Ukrainian people, you have stopped the greatest inhuman force of our time,” the 45-year-old told the people of the country. Russia wants to destroy human dignity. But this will never happen in Ukraine. “Bucha became the city after seeing that the world really changed, the world really woke up,” said Zelenskyy. “Russian evil will land right here in Ukraine and will be unable to rise again. Humanity will triumph.”
Bucha was “engraved in our collective memory as the epitome of Russian war crimes,” Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said in a pre-recorded video message to the summit on Russia’s responsibility for crimes in Ukraine. , which was also held in Bucha. Schallenberg reiterated Austria’s support for the creation of a special court.
“No one is above the law, there must be no impunity, crimes must be fully clarified,” Schallenberg said in his video message. The mass graves discovered at Bucha would prove “terrible massacres”. In addition, Schallenberg announced an additional 100,000 euros for the post of Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Austria is now supporting the ICC in the investigation of war crimes committed in Ukraine with a total of €300,000 and an expert from the Ministry of Justice.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also recalled war crimes. “The sight of mass graves and body bags lined up on the ground is forever etched in my memory,” she said in a video message on Friday. After the city’s liberation in the spring of 2022, she traveled to the scene of the incident.
“Russian soldiers looted and burned houses, tortured, raped and murdered innocent civilians,” said von der Leyen. Among other things, she remembers young people with their hands tied behind their backs who were shot in the head. “Not even women and children were spared,” said von der Leyen. The cold-blooded executions are part of a larger plan. The Kremlin wants to eliminate Ukraine, its independence and democracy.
A huge Ukrainian flag was raised in a newly created place for Bucha defenders. The heads of government of Croatia (Andrej Plenković), Slovakia (Eduard Heger) and Slovenia (Robert Golob) also participated in the celebration, as well as Moldovan President Maia Sandu.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who will join the commemoration with a video message in the afternoon, called for war crimes committed there to be punished. “The atrocities in Bucha a year ago showed the world what Putin’s war means. The images burned into me too,” Scholz wrote on Twitter. “These crimes must not go unpunished. We are united behind Ukraine. Russia will not win!”
On the anniversary of the Bucha massacre, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, again strongly condemned the war in Ukraine. Russia’s invasion “threw us back to an archaic era,” he said on Friday at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. “An era when the territory of a neighboring country could be invaded and claimed as its own at will. When communities’ identities and histories could be denied and reality rewritten.”
Türk recalled the investigation commission’s report that documented crimes in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. This includes premeditated killings, attacks on civilians, illegal detention, rape and child abduction, the commission said in mid-March. Some are war crimes and possibly also crimes against humanity.
“At a time when humanity is facing overwhelming existential challenges, this destructive war is distracting us from the work of creating solutions – the work of ensuring our survival,” Turk said. “This war is beyond reason. This madness must end and peace must be established in accordance with the United Nations and international law.”
On March 31, 2022, the Russian army withdrew from the city north of the Ukrainian capital Kiev. Two days later, the Bucha massacre became known. The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office recorded more than 9,000 war crimes in and around Bucha. More than 1,400 people died. More than 175 bodies were found in mass graves or “torture chambers”. Moscow has vehemently denied the allegations to date and talks of a staging by the Ukrainian secret service.