BUCHA, Ukraine — Residents of the Ukrainian town of Bucha near the capital of Kyiv have given harrowing accounts of how Russian troops shot and killed civilians without any apparent reason.
Bodies of civilians lay strewn across the northern town, which was controlled by Russian soldiers for about a month.
At a logistics compound that residents say was used as a base by Russian forces, the bodies of 8 men could be seen dumped on the ground, some with their hands tied behind their backs.
Residents say Russian troops would go from building to building, take people out of the basements where they were hiding from the fighting, check their phones for evidence of anti-Russian activity and take them away or shoot them.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has rejected the claims of atrocities against civilians in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv as a “provocation.”
The ministry says that “not a single civilian has faced any violent action by the Russian military“ in Bucha.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told a U.S. television interview Sunday that Russian attacks in Ukraine amount to genocide.
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ROME — The head of Italy’s Democratic Party called for a full oil and gas embargo in reaction to images emerging of atrocities against civilians by Russian soldiers retreating from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
“How many #Buca before we move to a full oil and gas Russia embargo,” Enrico Letta wrote on Twitter Sunday. “Time is over.”
Italy gets 40% of its natural gas from Russia and officials have said it would take three years to make the transition to other sources.
Premier Mario Draghi acknowledged last week that energy payments were fueling Russia’s invasion, and the foreign minister has been traveling to oil and gas producing countries to line up alternatives to Russia.
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WASHINGTON — White House chief of staff Ron Klain says the U.S. remains fully committed to providing a full range of economic and military support to Ukraine in its war against Russia, which he describes as “far from over.”
Klain credits Ukrainians for fighting off Russian troops in the northern part of Ukraine and says the U.S. and its allies are sending weapons into the country “almost every single day.”
But he also tells ABC’s “This Week” that there are signs that Russian President Vladimir Putin is redeploying Russian troops to the eastern part of Ukraine.
Klain says while it will be up to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to decide if the political endgame is to allow Russia to occupy the eastern part of Ukraine, from the U.S. standpoint, the “military future of this attack has to be push back.”
He says regarding a potential Russian occupation of eastern Ukraine: “I will tell you, as President Zelenskyy has said, that’s not acceptable to him, and we are going to support him with military aid, with economic aid, with humanitarian aid.”
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Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says in a U.S. television interview that Russian attacks in Ukraine amount to genocide.
Zelenskyy told CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday that there are more than 100 nationalities in Ukraine and “this is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities. We are citizens of Ukraine and we don’t want to be subdued to the policy of Russian Federation.”
In an excerpt of the interview released by CBS before it aired, he says, “This is the reason we are being destroyed and exterminated. And this is happening in the Europe of the 21st century. So this is the torture of the whole nation.”
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PARIS — French and German leaders have joined in growing international condemnation of alleged war crimes and civilian killings committed by Russian forces in Ukrainian towns including Bucha near Kyiv.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed shock Sunday about the “terrible and horrifying footage that has reached us this weekend from Ukraine.”
“Dozens of shot civilians have been discovered in Bucha ... Streets littered with bodies. Bodies buried in makeshift conditions. There is talk of women, children and the elderly among the victims,” he said. He added that international organizations should be given access to the areas to independently document the atrocities.
French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian condemned “in the strongest terms” the alleged “massive abuses.” He said France will work with Ukrainian authorities and the International Criminal Court “to ensure these acts don’t go unpunished and that those responsible are being sent to trial and convicted.”
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KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military says Russian troops have completed their pullback from the country’s north.
The military’s General Staff said in Sunday’s statement that Russian units have withdrawn from areas in the country’s north to neighboring Belarus, which served as a staging ground for the Russian invasion.
The Ukrainian military said its airborne forces have taken full control of the town of Pripyat just outside the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the section of the border with Belarus. It posted a picture of the Ukrainian soldier putting up the country’s flag with a shelter containing the Chernobyl reactor that exploded in 1986 seen in the background.
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VILNIUS, Lithuania — Lithuania says it has cut itself off entirely of gas imports from Russia and that it’s the first of the European Union’s 27 nations using Russian gas to break its energy dependence upon Moscow.
“Seeking full energy independence from Russian gas, in response to Russia’s energy blackmail in Europe and the war in Ukraine, Lithuania has completely abandoned Russian gas,” Lithuania’s energy ministry said in a statement late Saturday, adding that the measure took effect in the beginning of April.
Lithuania reduced imports of Russian gas to zero on Saturday, a move seen a milestone in achieving energy independence in the former Soviet republic of 2.8 million, the ministry said.
“We are the first EU country among Gazprom’s supply countries to gain independence from Russian gas supplies, and this is the result of a multi-year coherent energy policy and timely infrastructure decisions,” Minister of Energy Dainius Kreivys said.
Lithuania’a president posted an upbeat tweet on his account and urged other European nations to do the same.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s top diplomat has called for tougher sanctions on Russia over growing evidence of what he called a massacre of civilians in the suburbs of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials said earlier Sunday that scores of killed civilians have been found on the streets of Kyiv’ suburbs of Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel after the withdrawal of Russian troops. They said that some of the victims were shot in the head and had their hands bound.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted Sunday that the killings were “deliberate,” adding that “Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can.”
He urged the West to impose an oil, gas and coal embargo, and close all ports to Russian vessels and goods. He also called for all Russian banks to be disconnected from the SWIFT international payment system.
In Germany President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin that “the war crimes committed by Russia are visible before the eyes of the world.”
German news agency dpa reported that Steinmeier said “the images from Bucha shake me, they shake us deeply.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock pledged to tighten sanctions against Russia but did not give details.
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BERLIN — Poland’s most powerful politician says he is open to the permanent stationing of U.S. nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland’s ruling conservative party, Law and Justice, said Sunday in an interview with German weekly Welt am Sonntag that “in principle, it makes sense to extend nuclear participation to the eastern flank.”
Kaczynski added that “if the Americans asked us to store U.S. nuclear weapons in Poland, we would be open to it. It would significantly strengthen deterrence against Moscow.”
Kaczynski acknowledged that “at the moment, this question does not arise, but that may change soon.”
The Polish leader also called for a much stronger presence of U.S. soldiers in Europe in the future, especially on NATO’s eastern flank.
He said that “Poland would welcome an increase in the American presence in Europe in the future from the current 100,000 soldiers to 150,000 soldiers because of Russia’s increasing aggressiveness.”
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MOSCOW — The Kremlin says that by imposing sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin the West has demonstrated it has abandoned its sense of reason.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in televised remarks Sunday that the sanctions against Putin were going “beyond the edge of reason,” adding that they showed that the West is “capable of any stupidities.”
Peskov added that Putin’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is “hypothetically possible” once negotiators from the two countries prepared a draft agreement to be discussed.
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BERLIN — German authorities have registered more than 300,000 refugees from Ukraine since the outbreak of the war there last month.
The interior ministry tweeted Sunday that “to date, federal police has registered 303,474 refugees from Ukraine in Germany. Most of them are women, children and old people.”
The numbers of Ukrainian refugees in the country are thought to be much higher as Ukrainians can enter Germany without visas and there are no thorough controls along the Polish-German border.
Up to 10,000 arrived at Berlin's train station on some days. Recently the flow of refugees has slowed down from up to 15,000 new arrivals nationwide to around 5,000 to 7,000 new refugees per day.
Overall, more than 4.17 million Ukrainians have fled their country since Russia attacked Ukraine on Feb. 24. Most sought refuge in neighboring Poland.
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KYIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian presidential adviser says authorities have found evidence of serious war crimes by Russian troops on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Sunday scores of killed civilians have been found on the streets of Kyiv’ suburbs of Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel after the withdrawal of Russian troops. He compared the scene to “a horror movie.”
Arestovych said some victims were shot in the head and had their hands bound, and some of the bodies had signs of torture. He accused Russian troops of raping women and trying to burn their bodies.
Arestovych said Ukrainian authorities will investigate the alleged war crimes and track down the perpetrators.
The reports drew international condemnation. In Britain, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said there is increasing evidence of “indiscriminate attacks against innocent civilians” and said they must be investigated as war crimes.
“We will not allow Russia to cover up their involvement in these atrocities through cynical disinformation and will ensure that the reality of Russia’s actions are brought to light,” she said.
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MOSCOW — Russia’s top negotiator in talks with Ukraine says it’s too early to talk about a meeting between the two countries’ president.
Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian delegation in Tuesday’s talks in Istanbul, Turkey, said “there is still a lot of work to do” to finalize a draft agreement before Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could meet.
Speaking Sunday in remarks carried by the Interfax news agency, Medinsky reaffirmed that the parties reached a tentative agreement on the need for Ukraine to adopt a neutral status and refrain from holding foreign military bases in exchange for international security guarantees.
Asked about Ukrainian negotiator Davyd Arakhamia’s claim that Moscow’s negotiators had informally agreed to most proposals by Ukraine during the talks in Istanbul this week and the two presidents could discuss the draft deal, Medinsky said he doesn’t share Arakhamia’s optimism. He said the talks will continue online Monday.
Medinsky emphasized that Russia’s stand on Crimea and rebel regions in Ukraine’s east remained unchanged. The Kremlin demands that Ukraine acknowledge Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014, and recognize the independence of Russia-backed separatist regions in Donbas, Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland.
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KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy devoted a good part of his late-night address to his nation to call out Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for his support of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as Hungarians prepared to vote in an election Sunday.
Zelenskyy depicted the Hungarian leader as out of touch with the rest of Europe, which has united to condemn Putin, support sanctions against Russia and send aid including weapons to Ukraine.
“He is virtually the only one in Europe to openly support Mr. Putin,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy noted the Hungarian people support the Ukrainian people, and distinguished between Hungarians and what he called “official Budapest.”
“The whole of Europe is trying to stop the war, to restore peace. Then why is official Budapest opposed to the whole of Europe, to all civilized countries?” Zelenskyy asked.
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BERLIN — The mayor of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has expressed shock at what he called “cruel war crimes” committed by Russian soldiers in the town of Bucha northwest of the capital.
Referring to reports of executed civilians, Klitschko told German daily Bild on Sunday that “what happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be described as genocide.”
An AP crew on Sunday saw the bodies of at least nine people who appear to have been executed. At least two of them had their hands tied behind their backs. They were all in civilian clothes and at least three were naked from the waist up. One appeared shot in the chest from close range.
Klitschko said Russian President Vladimir Putin was responsible for the “cruel war crimes,” adding that civilians had been “shot with tied hands.”
He called on the the whole world and especially Germany to immediately end gas imports from Russia.
He said that “especially for Germany, there can only be one consequence: Not a penny should go to Russia anymore, that’s bloody money used to slaughter people. The gas and oil embargo must come immediately.”
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The Russian military says it has struck an oil processing plant and fuel depots around the strategic Black Sea port of Odesa.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj.-Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Russian ships and aircraft fired missiles on Sunday to strike the facilities, which he said were used to provide fuel to Ukrainian troops near Mykolaiv.
Konashenkov also said Russian strikes destroyed ammunition depots in Kostiantynivka and Khresyshche.
In a message posted by Italian news agency ANSA, Italian photographer Carlo Orlandi said Odesa woke to military sirens at 5:45 a.m. Sunday, followed immediately by the sounds of bombs falling on the port city from two aircraft.
He described a column of dark smoke rising from the targets, and flames from the buildings.
“What we can see is a dense screen of dark smoke, and one explosion after the other,″ Orlandi said.
LVIV, Ukraine – President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian troops retaking areas around Kyiv and Chernihiv are not allowing Russians to retreat without a fight, but are “shelling them. They are destroying everyone they can.”
Zelenskyy, in his Saturday night video address to the nation, said Ukraine knows Russia has the forces to put even more pressure on the east and south of Ukraine.
“What is the goal of the Russian troops? They want to seize the Donbas and the south of Ukraine,” he said. “What is our goal? To defend ourselves, our freedom, our land and our people.”
He said a significant portion of the Russian forces are tied up around Mariupol, where the city’s defenders continue to fight.
“Thanks to this resistance, thanks to the courage and resilience of our other cities, Ukraine has gained invaluable time, time that is allowing us to foil the enemy’s tactics and weaken its capabilities,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy appealed again to the West for more modern weaponry, such as anti-missile systems and aircraft.
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A Ukrainian beauty blogger whom Russian officials accused of being a crisis actor when she was interviewed and photographed by The Associated Press in a bombed out Mariupol maternity hospital has emerged in new videos that are fueling fresh misinformation about the attack.
A Russian government-linked Twitter account on Friday shared an interview with Marianna Vishegirskaya, in which the new mother says the hospital was not hit by an airstrike last month and that she told AP journalists she did not want to be filmed. But AP reporting, and recordings of AP journalists’ interactions with her, contradict her claim.
In the interview, conducted by Russian blogger Denis Seleznev and filmed by Kristina Melnikova, Vishegirskaya is asked to provide details about what occurred at the hospital on March 9, the day of the bombing. It is not clear where Vishegirskaya is, or under what conditions the interview was filmed.
Russian officials have repeatedly tried to cast doubt on the strike in Mariupol, a key military objective for Moscow, since images were seen around the world and shed light on Russia’s attacks on civilians in Ukraine.
In the new videos, Vishegirskaya says those huddled in the basement of the hospital after the attack believed the explosions were caused by “shelling,” not an airstrike, because “no one” heard sounds that would indicate that bombs were dropped from planes.
But eyewitness accounts and video from AP journalists in Mariupol lays out evidence of an airstrike, including the sound of an airplane before the blast, a crater outside the hospital that went at least two stories deep and interviews with a police officer and a soldier at the scene who both referred to the attack as an “airstrike.”
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BUCHA, Ukraine — Ukrainian troops moved cautiously to retake territory north of Kyiv on Saturday, even amid fears that Russian forces left booby-trapped explosives.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that departing Russian troops were creating a “catastrophic” situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and “even the bodies of those killed.” His claims could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian troops took up positions in the town of Bucha, and were stationed at the entrance of Antonov Airport in Hostomel after retaking territory from Russian forces.
In Bucha, AP reporters counted at least 6 bodies of civilians scattered along a street and in the front yard of a house. Ukrainian soldiers, backed by a column of tanks and armored vehicles, attached cables to the bodies and pulled them off the street for fear they may be booby-trapped. Soldiers also cleared barricades and inspected suspicious objects, placing red rags on remnants of unexploded ordnance to draw attention to the possibility of explosions.
Residents of the town said the civilians were killed by Russian soldiers without apparent provocation.
Ukraine and its Western allies reported mounting evidence of Russia withdrawing its forces from around Kyiv and building its troop strength in eastern Ukraine. The visible shift did not mean the country faced a reprieve from more than five weeks of war or that the more than 4 million refugees who have fled Ukraine will return soon.
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CAIRO — The Muslim holy month of Ramadan — when the faithful fast from dawn to dusk — began at sunrise Saturday in much of the Middle East, where Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent energy and food prices soaring.
The conflict cast a pall over Ramadan, when large gatherings over meals and family celebrations are a tradition. Many had hoped for a more cheerful Ramadan after the coronavirus pandemic blocked the world’s 2 billion Muslims from many rituals the past two years.
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, millions of people in the Middle East are now wondering where their next meals will come from. The skyrocketing prices are affecting people whose lives were already upended by conflict, displacement and poverty from Lebanon, Iraq and Syria to Sudan and Yemen.
Ukraine and Russia account for a third of global wheat and barley exports, which Middle East countries rely on to feed millions of people who subsist on subsidized bread and bargain noodles. They are also top exporters of other grains and sunflower seed oil used for cooking.
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Ukraine’s deputy prime minister says 765 residents managed to make it out of Mariupol in private vehicles on Saturday while a team a humanitarian workers has yet to reach the hard-hit city.
Iryna Vereshchuk said the residents reached Zaporizhzhia, a city 140 miles (226 kilometers) to the northwest.
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross said a team with three vehicles and nine staff members had planned to get into Mariupol, scene of some of the war’s worst attacks, on Saturday to evacuate residents. The Red Cross said it could not carry out the operation Friday because it did not receive assurances the route was safe. City authorities said the Russians blocked access to the city.
A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross said Saturday evening the team, which departed Zaporizhzhia in the morning, was “spending the night en route to Mariupol and are yet to reach the city.” Around 100,000 people are believed to remain in the city on the Sea of Azov, down from a prewar population of 430,000, and facing dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine.
The Mariupol city council said earlier Saturday that 10 empty buses were headed to Berdyansk, a city 52 miles (84 kilometers) west of Mariupol, to pick up people who managed to get there on their own. About 2,000 made it out of Mariupol on Friday, city officials said.
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At least 17 colleges and universities in several U.S. states will jointly offer honorary degrees to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during their commencement ceremonies this spring.
Alfred University President Mark Zupan said the idea grew from his request to have Zelenskyy speak virtually to a combination of graduating classes.
When an official at the Ukrainian embassy declined the western New York university’s request, the institutions agreed to award honorary degrees in absentia to honor Zelenskyy’s leadership during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“The gesture was motivated by the inspiring example provided by President Zelenskyy to his people and the broader world in defense of freedom and democracy,” Zupan said in a news release Friday.
Several additional campuses in upstate New York, which has a significant population with ties to Ukraine, have committed to the idea. They are being joined by institutions in Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Others are expected to join in, Alfred University said.
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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday thanked the people of Enerhodar for protesting the Russian occupation. The southeastern city, where employees of the nearby Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant live, has been under Russian control since early March.
In response to the protest, Russian forces “opened fire and used grenades against completely peaceful people,” Zelenskyy said in his nighttime video address. Four people were badly burned, according to Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman.
Ukraine’s state nuclear agency reported about Saturday’s attacks on its official Telegram channel. A video clip accompanying the Telegram post by Ukraine’s Energoatom appeared to feature loud blasts and flying debris.
A second post on the state enterprise’s channel claimed that explosions and mortar bursts could be heard near the Sovremennik cultural center, where residents held a rally in support of Ukraine. The ombudsman said the residents were singing Ukraine’s national anthem.
“As protesters began to disperse, the invaders arrived in police vehicles, and began to force local residents into them,” the post read. “A few minutes later, the city was rocked by massive explosions and shelling.”
A Russian group that monitors political arrests says 208 people were detained in demonstrations held Saturday across the country protesting Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
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CHISINAU, Moldova — Authorities in the tiny breakaway region of Transnistria in Moldova denied “absolutely untrue” claims Saturday by Ukraine that Russian troops based there are massing to conduct “provocations” along Ukraine’s border.
Earlier Saturday, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that Russian troops already in Transnistria were preparing for “a demonstration of readiness for the offensive and, possibly, hostilities against Ukraine.”
“The information disseminated by the General Staff of Ukraine is absolutely untrue,” Transnistria’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that leaders have repeatedly “declared the absence of any threat to Ukraine.”
Moldova’s Foreign Ministry also said Saturday there is “no information to confirm the mobilization of troops in the Transnistrian region” and that “state institutions are closely monitoring the security situation in the region.”
Transnistria is a Russia-backed region of Moldova that broke away after a short civil war in the early 1990s, and is unrecognized by most countries. An estimated 1,500 Russian soldiers are stationed there.