Developments and Massacres from Russia in Ukraine
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| The Leveling of everything in Ukraine by Russia |
Russia’s retreat from Kyiv offered a clearer picture of the devastating civilian toll from the war, sparking global outrage against Moscow and calls by Western leaders for war crimes investigations.
Even as Russia removed forces from around the capital, it attacked Ukraine’s southern coastline on Sunday, hitting key infrastructure there.
The retreat, which the Russian government has struggled to explain, comes after weeks of intense fighting around Kyiv and signals what appears to be a repositioning of troops to expand on territory they have captured in the south. Still, fears remain that Russian forces could renew an assault on Kyiv, and fighting has continued elsewhere across the country.
The attacks on Ukraine’s southern coastline come as Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of executing some civilians before their retreat from areas around Kyiv. Footage posted by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and photographs from new agencies showed the bodies of men in civilian clothes on the streets of Bucha, a town northwest of Kyiv. Images showed some corpses with hands bound behind their back. Russia’s Defense Ministry dismissed the photos in Bucha as “fake.”
The outrage over the civilian deaths could move the needle in terms of European Union sanctions against Russia. The bloc has so far rebuffed mounting calls from Ukraine, and by President Biden, to impose sanctions on Russian oil and gas, citing its dependency on Russian fuels. But on Sunday, in what would mark a significant shift in her country’s position, Germany’s defense minister, Christine Lambrecht, said that in light of the Bucha atrocities, the bloc should consider banning Russian gas imports.
Here are some other major developments:
The Black Sea port cities of Odesa and Mykolaiv were stuck by missiles on Sunday. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said on Sunday that intelligence showed Russian naval forces have maintained a blockade of the Ukrainian coast in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, which is “preventing Ukrainian resupply by sea.”
Amid reports of Russian atrocities in Ukraine, American lawmakers called to send more aid to the country. Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, said in a tweetthat more European Union sanctions against Russia “are on their way.”
Russia’s chief negotiator in peace talks, Vladimir Medinsky, rejected a Ukrainian counterpart’s suggestion that Mr. Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine could soon hold direct talks. Mr. Medinsky said the two sides remained far apart on the status of Crimea and the eastern Donbas region, both of which are claimed by Russia.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the Ukrainian government was working with the International Committee of the Red Cross on another planned mass evacuation of civilians from the besieged southern city of Mariupol, after a convoy failed to reach the city for a third time on Saturday.
Matina Stevis-Gridneff contributed reporting from Brussels.
A Massacre in Germany~ History Keeps repeating itself:
(This is now Western Ukraine, the kids were Russian the victim was polish)
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| With the active encouragement of the Nazis, horror is unleashed on the Jewish population of the Soviet Ukraine and territories that had been occupied by Soviet forces. This woman is fleeing from a mob in Lviv, a Polish city overtaken by Soviet and then Nazi forces that is today part of western Ukraine -- in June or July 1941. Thousands of Jews were tormented and murdered by mobs of locals during a series of pogroms in Central and Eastern Europe. |
President Zelensky addressed reports of Russian soldiers executing civilians, saying that Russia had committed “genocide” and must be punished. “We are being destroyed and exterminated, and this is happening in the Europe of the 21st century,” Mr. Zelensky said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” adding that “the military commanders, everyone who gave instructions and orders, should be punished adequately” for the reported killings.
Reporting from Brussels
The German defense minister, Christine Lambrecht, said in an interview that the European Union should consider banning Russian gas imports in light of the evidence of Russian atrocities emerging from the Ukrainian town of Bucha. The official defense ministry Twitter account shared a link to the minister’s interview with a German television program. The statement marks a major change in German policy, which has consistently led the E.U. away from sanctioning Russian energy.
“This morning the enemy attacked Odesa from the air,” Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Lyudmila Denisova, wrote in a post on Telegram. “Critical infrastructure was affected,” she said, adding that a day earlier, Russian forces had damaged the Kremenchuk oil refinery in central Ukraine and fired on its surrounding fuel depots. Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed Sunday’s strikes, saying it had destroyed an oil refinery and three oil depots around Odesa that “were used to resupply Ukrainian military units” near Mykolaiv. No casualties were immediately reported.
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