Ukraine: Zhelensky has called on the UN to take immediate action to address “Russian war crimes.”

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KRAMATORSK | On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zhelensky called on the UN to act “immediately” against Russia’s “war crimes” in Ukraine, specifically calling for its withdrawal from the Security Council, while denying any allegations of Moscow atrocities.

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The European Union (EU) and Washington have intensified economic and diplomatic tensions against Russia following a wave of shocks over the weekend over the discovery of numerous bodies in Bautista, near Ukraine, where Ukraine has accused Russia of massacring Russians. .

“Now we need the decisions of the Security Council for Peace in Ukraine,” he said. Zhelensky said in a speech broadcast live on video in the Security Council Chamber in New York.

He called on the UN to hold Russia accountable for its “war crimes” since its invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

To that end, Russia should be excluded from the Security Council, which is one of the five permanent members vetoed, or the UN body should be reformed, so “veto does not mean the right to die.”

The President of Ukraine broadcast to the Security Council a video showing the most crude pictures of people killed in Ukraine.

British Ambassador Barbara Woodward said these were “horrible pictures” and that she had been “slandered”. Many bodies or body parts were seen in these films, with a sound background emphasizing the dramatization of the video.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzia, has repeatedly denied allegations that he targeted the Russian military. “We did not come to capture the territory of Ukraine,” he said.

Moscow accuses Ukrainian authorities of preparing “platforms” for slain civilians in several cities to condemn the Kremlin.

The Russian ambassadors were expelled

Following France and Germany on Monday, Italy, Spain and Slovenia expelled Russian diplomats en masse on Tuesday, following the discovery of dozens of bodies near Kiev, signaling a further deterioration in relations with Moscow. In all, about 200 Russian ambassadors were expelled from Europe within 48 hours.

In the wake of sanctions that have rained down on Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine, the US Treasury announced on Tuesday that it would not allow Russia to repay its debt with the dollars it holds in US banks.

Britain has frozen $ 350 billion in the “war chest” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Foreign Secretary Lis Truss said in Warsaw on Tuesday.

The European Union, for its part, has promised new sanctions against Russia “this week.” The European Commission has proposed that twenty-seven countries stop buying Russian coal, which represents 45% of EU imports, and close their ports to Russian-operated ships.

On Twitter, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dimitrov Kuleba, called on the European Union to impose a “mother of all sanctions” on Moscow to prevent “new boots.” “Stop buying oil, gas and coal from Russia. He further added that the government should stop funding Vladimir Putin’s war machine.

Mikhailo Bodoliac, mr. Zhelensky’s adviser called on Europe to provide Ukraine with “today’s heavy weapons.”

“Critical phase”

At the military theater, several bombs struck Gramdorsk overnight from Monday to Tuesday, a large city controlled by Kiev in eastern Ukraine, which the Ukrainian Defense Ministry says is anticipating an “enemy” attack. “Control of the whole of Lukansk and Donetsk regions”.

“We know that the Russians are getting stronger and preparing for an attack,” an official told AFP, adding that the increase in the front of Russian helicopters, in particular, usually indicates a large-scale attack.

After the recent withdrawal of Russian troops besieging Kiev and its territory, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg realized that Russia was strengthening itself to “control the whole of Donbass” in the east of Ukraine and “building a ground bridge with Crimea.” Incorporated by Moscow in 2014.

“We are at a critical juncture in the war,” he warned, adding that he feared “other atrocities” committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.

Russia has denied any responsibility for the “massacre” since Monday, including in Kiev.

But according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “all the signs point to the fact that the victims. [de Boutcha] Deliberately targeted and killed directly. And this evidence is very disturbing. “

Satellite images of the city, released Monday by the American company Maxar Technologies, appear to refute Russian claims that the bodies of civilians found in Boutcha were placed there after Russian troops evacuated the area.

1.2 billion people have been affected

On Saturday, AFP saw the bodies of at least 22 people in civilian clothes on the streets of the city on Boutcha. One of them was lying near the bicycle and the other had shopping bags near her. The hands of a corpse were tied behind their backs.

In the liberated city, a resident told AFP he had “seen ahead.” [ses] Members of the Russian forces shoot the “man who went to fetch food from the supermarket”.

According to Bautza’s Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk, 280 Ukrainians have been buried in “mass graves” in Putsa in recent days.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU diplomat Josep Borrell visited Kyiv “this week”. The EU announced that it would meet with Zelensky.

In the southeast, Mariupol “crossed the threshold of a humanitarian catastrophe”, the mayor of this large port besieged by the Russian military, Vadim Botchenko, told AFP on Tuesday, describing the situation as “unsustainable.” About 120,000 people are still living. In place.

The city, which had a population of nearly half a million before the war, was “90% destroyed,” Mr Boitchenko announced Monday.

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vareshchuk said on Tuesday that seven humanitarian corridors were planned to evacuate as many civilians as possible from the city.

According to a recent report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 4.24 million Ukrainian refugees have fled the country since February 24.

No such refugees flooded Europe after World War II, 90% of them were women and children, and Ukrainian authorities did not allow men of childbearing age to leave.

In all, the war in Ukraine has had an impact on 74 developing countries, with 1.2 billion people “particularly affected by rising food, energy and fertilizer prices,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday.