WASHINGTON, April 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US President Joe Biden called for a war crimes trial over the alleged atrocities against civilians in Bucha, Ukraine, and said he wants more sanctions imposed on Russia.
Calling President Vladimir Putin “a war criminal” and the killings “a war crime,” Biden told reporters there should be “a war crimes trial.”
Biden also said “I’m seeking more sanctions, yes.”
Meanwhile in BUCHA, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described as “genocide” the killings of civilians in the town of Bucha outside the capital Kyiv reclaimed from Russian forces.
“These are war crimes and it will be recognised by the world as genocide,” Zelensky said during a visit to Bucha, where bodies were discovered strewn throughout the town after it was reclaimed by Kyiv’s army.
“You stand here today and see what happened. We know that thousands of people have been killed and tortured with extremities cut off, women raped, children killed,” he told reporters wearing a bullet-proof vest and accompanied by military personnel.
“It’s genocide,” he added.
Ukraine and Western nations have accused Russian troops of war crimes after the discovery of mass graves and apparently executed civilians at Bucha, prompting vows of action at the International Criminal Court.
Russia’s defence ministry denied its troops had killed civilians in the town recently retaken by Ukrainian soldiers.
Britain, France, Germany, the United States and NATO all voiced horror at the images from Bucha, where some of the bodies lying in public appeared to have been bound by their hands and feet before being shot.
In other developments, the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol in the south-east of the country has been “90 percent” destroyed after being besieged by Russian forces, its mayor Vadym Boichenko said.
“The sad news is that 90 percent of the infrastructure in the city is destroyed and 40 percent is unrecoverable,” Boichenko told a press conference. Around 130,000 people remained trapped in the city, he said. — NNN-AGENCIES
