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Ukrainian President Zelenskiy visits Bucha, says Russian ‘war crimes’ make negotiations harder

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday (April 4, 2022) visited the town of Bucha in the Kyiv region, where tied bodies shot at close range, a mass grave and other signs of executions were found in territory retaken from Russian troops. Following the visit, Zelenskiy spoke on national television from Bucha and said that it had become harder for his country to negotiate with Russia since Kyiv became aware of the scale of atrocities carried out by Russian troops in Ukraine.

“These are war crimes and will be recognised by the world as genocide,” Zelenskiy said, wearing body armour and surrounded by his military personnel.

“It’s very difficult to talk when you see what they`ve done here,” he said.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Bucha, outside Kyiv
(Zelenskiy visits the town of Bucha)

“The longer the Russian Federation drags out the negotiating process, the worse it is for them and for this situation and for this war,” Zelenskiy said.

“We know of thousands of people killed and tortured, with severed limbs, raped women and murdered children,” he added.

After Zelenskiy spoke, Ukrainian officials took journalists to the basement of what they said was a summer residence for children and showed them the bodies of five men with their hands tied behind their backs.

The officials said that the five people, who all wore civilian clothes, had been killed by occupying Russian soldiers before Ukrainian troops retook control of the town.

“They were shot, shot either in their head or in their chest. They were tortured before they were killed,” said Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry.

He said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s soldiers had set up camp inside the building and stayed there for three weeks.

Earlier on Sunday, Bucha`s deputy mayor had said that 50 residents had been victims of extra-judicial killings carried out by Russian troops.

Bodies of civilians lie in the street, amid Russia''s invasion on Ukraine, in Bucha
(Bodies of civilians lie in the street in Bucha)

Russia, however, denied any accusations related to the murder of civilians in Bucha.

“This information must be seriously questioned,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov had told reporters on Monday.

“From what we have seen, our experts have identified signs of video falsification and other fakes,” he had said.

Meanwhile, Zelenskiy has said that he would address the UN Security Council on Tuesday and predicted further, worse instances of mass killings of civilians by Russian troops would be discovered.

Tuesday`s Security Council session is to consider Ukrainian allegations of the murder of civilians by Russian soldiers in Bucha.

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