UNITED NATIONS — Ukraine’s president told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that the Russian military must be brought to justice immediately for war crimes, accusing invading troops of the worst atrocities since World War II.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, making his plea via video, cited reported atrocities against civilians carried out by Russian forces in the town of Bucha on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv, saying they are no different than other terrorists like the Islamic State extremist group.
Images of slain bodies on the ground, particularly from the town of Bucha, have stirred global revulsion and led to demands for tougher sanctions and war crime prosecutions against Russia.
Zelenskyy, making his first appearance before the U.N.’s highest body, stressed there are more places in Ukraine that have suffered similar horrors. He called for a tribunal to be established that is similar to the Nuremberg tribunal set up to try war criminals after World War II.
___
WARSAW, Poland — Britain's foreign secretary says her country will urge the G-7 group to impose more sanctions on Russia, saying that current sanctions have already had a “crippling effect.”
Liz Truss said in Warsaw that sanctions have already frozen $350 billion of “Putin’s war chest,” saying that makes more than 60% of Russia’s $604 billion in currency reserves unavailable.
“Our coordinated sanctions are pushing the Russian economy back to the Soviet era,” she said at a news conference with her Polish counterpart Zbigniew Rau.
She observed that Poland had seen more clearly the threat that Moscow posed in past years, even as Western countries embraced doing business with Russia.
“Poland has always been clear-eyed about Russia. You have understood Putin’s malign intent. You were right,” she said.
Truss said Britain will encourage the other G-7 countries to ban Russian ships from its ports, crack down on Russian banks, set a timetable to eliminate imports of Russian oil and gas, and try to prevent Russia from using gold to fund its war effort.
___
ROME — Italian Premier Mario Draghi is demanding that Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as the Russian authorities and the Russian army “answer for their actions” in Ukraine, including the “documented massacre of civilians” in Bucha, Irpin and other Ukrainian towns.
In a speech Tuesday in Turin, Italy, Draghi said the atrocities committed in those and other Ukrainian towns “shake deep down the souls” of people who are democratic.
The war crimes “must be punished,” added Draghi. “To President Putin, I say again, ‘Put an end to the hostilities, interrupt the massacres and make a cease-fire.’”
Draghi said “if we look at the war through the lens of our values” -- peace, respect for human life and solidarity -- “for the great Russian people, the war makes no sense. It means only shame, isolation and poverty.”
___
UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations chief says it is more urgent by the day to silence the guns in Ukraine, citing rising deaths and a new U.N. analysis indicating that 74 developing countries with a total population of 1.2 billion people are especially vulnerable to spiking food, energy and fertilizer prices.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that as a result of the global impact of Russia’s “full-fledged invasion on several fronts” of Ukraine, he said “we are already seeing some countries move from vulnerability into crisis and signs of serious social unrest.”
“The flames of conflict are fueled by inequality, deprivation and underfunding,” he said. “With all the warning signals flashing red, we have a duty to act.”
On food, Guterres urged all countries to keep markets open, resist unjustified export restrictions, make reserves available to countries at risk of hunger and famine and fund humanitarian appeals.
On energy, he said that using strategic stockpiles and reserves could help ease the energy crisis in the short-term “but the only medium- and long-term solution is to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy.”
On finance, he said “international financial institutions must go into emergency mode.” He urged the world’s 20 leading economies, the G-20, and international financial institutions “to increase liquidity and fiscal space so that governments can provide safety nets for the poorest and most vulnerable.”
___
BERLIN — Germany’s foreign minister has spoken out in favor of providing Ukraine with additional weapons to defend itself against Russia.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Tuesday that “we are looking at what solutions there are, together with the EU, NATO and in particular the G-7 partners.”
She dismissed criticism that Germany wasn’t doing enough to arm Ukraine, saying “there aren’t many other countries that have supplied more (weapons).”
Baerbock spoke following a conference in Berlin on support for Moldova, a poor, small eastern European nation bordering Ukraine that has been strongly affected by the conflict.
Participants agreed to take in 12,000 Ukrainian refugees currently in Moldova, provide 71 million euros in aid and almost 700 million euros in loans to the country, and support its efforts to fight corruption and decrease its energy dependence on Russia.
___
HELSINKI — Estonia and Latvia will close Russia’s consular missions in two cities each and expel a total of 27 Russian diplomats and employees currently stationed in the Baltic countries.
Estonia’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday the country decided to expel the staff of Russia’s consulates in the southern city of Tartu and border city of Narva and close the premises. The combined 14-member Russian staff, including 7 employees with diplomatic status, must leave the country by April 30, the ministry said.
The ministry’s undersecretary Mart Volmer said “there can be no talk of business as usual” with Moscow following allegations of atrocities against civilians in Ukrainian cities by Russian forces.
Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rincevics said in a tweet that Latvia will close Russian consulates in Daugavpils and Liepaja and expel 13 Russian diplomats and employees.
Daugavpils is Latvia’s second largest city situated close to the border with Belarus and Lithuania in southeastern Latvia, not very far from the Russian border, and Liepaja is a major port city.
___
MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any move by foreign countries to nationalize Russian stakes in companies would be “a double-edged sword.”
“We are already hearing statements from officials about a possible nationalization of some of our assets,” he said. “How far will that get us? Let no one forget that it is a double-edged sword.”
Putin also bemoaned what he said was “administrative pressure on our company Gazprom in some European countries.” Germany on Monday put a government agency in charge of a longtime German subsidiary of Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled energy giant.
The move falls short of nationalization because the German state has not taken ownership of the shares, and it is a temporary change of administration through September.
Gazprom said last week it had cut ties with the unit but Germany says that was invalid because the identity of any new owners is unclear and the deal happened without the required government approval.
___
JERUSALEM -- Israel’s prime minister says he is shocked by the gruesome images emerging from the Ukrainian town of Bucha, but he stopped short of accusing Russia of being responsible or calling the atrocities a war crime.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told reporters Tuesday that “we are, of course, shocked by the harsh scenes in Bucha. Terrible images, and we strongly condemn them.”
He said that “the images are extremely horrible. The suffering of the citizens of Ukraine is huge and we are doing everything we can to help.”
With Israel one of the few countries to have good relations with both Russia and Ukraine, Bennett has emerged as a mediator in efforts to end the war.
In order to preserve his relationship with Vladimir Putin, Bennett has been measured in his criticism of the Russian president. Instead, he has allowed Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to voice harsher condemnations.
Bennett referred reporters to the comments Monday by Lapid, who said the civilian deaths in Bucha constituted a “war crime.”
BRUSSELS — The European Union’s executive branch has proposed a ban on coal imports from Russia in what would be the first sanctions targeting the country’s lucrative energy industry over its war in Ukraine.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday that the EU needed to increase the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin after what she described as the “heinous crimes” carried out around Kyiv.
Von der Leyen said the ban on coal imports is worth 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion) per year. She added that the EU has already started working on additional sanctions, including on oil imports.
Von der Leyen didn’t mention natural gas. A consensus among the 27 EU member countries on targeting gas that’s used to generate electricity, heat homes and power industry would be more difficult to secure.
___
BRUSSELS — NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says Russia is regrouping its troops away from Kyiv only to mass them in the east and south of Ukraine in the coming weeks “for a crucial phase of the war.”
Stoltenberg said Tuesday that “Moscow is not giving up its ambitions in Ukraine” after withdrawing troops from region around the capital “to regroup, arm and resupply and to shift the focus to the East.”
He said that “we expect a further push in the eastern and southern Ukraine to try to take the entire Donbas and to create a land bridge” to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
___
MOSCOW -- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says the expulsions of Russian diplomats by European countries will prompt a response from Moscow and will complicate international relations.
Germany, France, Italy and Spain are among the countries which have expelled diplomats since Monday.
Peskov said that “we view negatively, we view with regret this narrowing of possibilities for diplomatic communication, diplomatic work in such difficult conditions, in unprecedent crisis conditions.”
He added that “it is short-sighted and a step which firstly will complicate our communication, which is required in order to seek reconciliation. And secondly it will inevitably lead to reciprocal steps.”
___
MADRID -- Spain is joining other European Union countries in expelling Russian diplomats.
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares announced Tuesday that at least 25 diplomats and staff at the Russian Embassy in Madrid are being expelled.
He said the group represents a threat to Spain’s security and the timing of the expulsion “is a response to crimes that cannot go unpunished,” in a reference to what he said were “barbaric” Russian war crimes in Ukraine in recent days.
Albares said that evidence of massacres of civilians in areas that Russian troops recently left amounts to “a turning point which the international community cannot ignore.”
He said the full list of who is to be expelled is being finalized and may amount to more than 25 people.
___
PARIS — French prosecutors say they’re opening investigations into possible war crimes committed against French nationals in Ukraine since Russian troops invaded.
The national prosecutors’ office that specializes in terrorism cases said it launched three war crimes investigations on Tuesday, against suspects yet to be identified.
French law allows prosecutors to investigate suspected war crimes committed outside of France if they involve French victims or suspects who are French or who reside in France.
The three French probes will look into suspected suspected crimes in Mariupol, Chernihiv and Hostomel.
The prosecutors’ statement said the suspected crimes could include deliberate attacks against civilians and deliberately withholding the essentials they needed to survive, physical assaults, and the deliberate destruction of civilian installations.
The statement did not explain how investigators will go about their work or give details about the suspected French victims and what happened to them.
___
COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- A Norwegian publisher says it is handing control of its Russian printing operations to 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov, the longtime editor of Russia’s leading independent newspaper.
Amedia CEO Anders Møller Opdahl said Tuesday that “it is impossible for Amedia to continue the printing business” because of the war in Ukraine.
Muratov’s Novaya Gazeta newspaper used Amedia’s presses but said last month it will remain closed for the duration of the Russian offensive.
Amedia, which has four printing houses in Russia, said it was withdrawing from Russia and that Muratov “will exercise all shareholder rights at his own discretion and have full control of day-to-day operations.”
___
GENEVA — The U.N. migration agency now estimates that more than 11 million people have fled their homes in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion.
The International Organization for Migration, in its first such full assessment in three weeks, reported Tuesday that more than 7.1 million had been displaced within Ukraine as of April 1. That comes on top of the figure of more than 4 million who have fled abroad, reported by the U.N. refugee agency.
IOM said more than 2.9 million others are actively considering “leaving their place of habitual residence due to war.”
Ukraine had a pre-war population of 44 million.
The tally marked an increase from IOM’s tally in mid-March of more than 9.7 million displaced internally in Ukraine or driven abroad.
___
LVIV, Ukraine — The governor of eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region has urged residents to stay inside, shut windows and doors and prepare wet face masks after a Russian strike hit a tank containing nitric acid.
Serhiy Haidai said on the messaging app Telegram Tuesday that the incident occurred near the city of Rubizhne, which the Ukrainian military says the Russians have been trying to take over. He didn’t specify what area the warning applies to.
Haidai warned that nitric acid “is dangerous if inhaled, swallowed and in contact with skin and mucous membranes.” The Russian military has not commented on the claim, and it could not be verified independently.
___
VIENNA -- Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s office says the Austrian leader plans to travel to Ukraine soon.
Austrian public broadcaster ORF reported Tuesday that the chancellery said Nehammer intends to visit and meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “in the coming days.”
Earlier Tuesday, the European Union’s executive Commission said that its president, Ursula von der Leyen, will travel to Kyiv this week.
___
BERLIN — The prime minister of Moldova says the poor eastern European nation needs major international support to cope with the influx of people fleeing neighboring Ukraine.
Natalia Gavrilita told a donor conference in Berlin on Tuesday that Moldova is hosting about 100,000 refugees from Ukraine, about a quarter of those who have entered since late February.
Gavrilita said Moldova, with a population of 2.5 million, has tried to provide refugees with decent conditions thanks to an “unprecedented mobilization” by the public and private sectors.
But she said “coping with this influx is one of the biggest challenges any Moldovan government has faced over the last three decades.”
She said that in addition to financial aid, Moldova also needs help building electricity interconnectors to Romania. She asked the European Union to open its market to agricultural imports from her country as it pivots away from Russia.
___
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Sweden's foreign minister says the Scandinavian country is expelling three Russian diplomats.
Foreign Minister Ann Lindeannouncement on Tuesday came after Denmark and Italy said they were expelling 15 and 30 Russians, respectively. On Monday, France and Germany announced that they wer kicking out dozens of Russians with diplomatic status.
Last month, Sweden’s domestic intelligence agency, SAPO, said that “every third Russian diplomat in Sweden is an intelligence officer.”
___
ROME -- The Italian Foreign Ministry says Italy is expelling 30 Russian diplomats.
Tuesday’s announcement followed expulsions by several other European countries. Germany said Monday that it was expelling 40 Russians with diplomatic status and France kicked out 35.
Germany’s interior minister said authorities attribute those who are being kicked out to Russian intelligence services. And Denmark said on Tuesday that it is expelling 15 Russian intelligence officers who worked at Russia’s Embassy in Copenhagen.
___
KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukraine says a civilian ship is sinking in the port of the besieged city of Mariupol after Russian forces fired on it.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said in a statement Tuesday that the ship was struck during “shelling from the sea” by Russia, causing a fire in the engine room. The crew was rescued, including one injured crew member, it added.
The ministry said the ship was flying the flag of the Dominican Republic and posted a picture of a cargo vessel. It didn’t specify how many people were on board or the nationalities of the crew members.
Russian forces have been bombarding Mariupol for weeks as they try to tighten control over Ukraine’s southeastern coastline.
___
BRUSSELS — Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive Commission, will travel to Kyiv this week to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Her spokesman, Eric Mamer, said Tuesday that her trip will come to ahead of a special pledging meeting in Warsaw over the weekend. It is the second such high-level trip by EU officials. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola went to Ukraine last week.
___
GENEVA — An international Red Cross team has shelved for Tuesday hopes of entering the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol after being held overnight by police in a town about 20 kilometers (12 miles) to the west.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has been trying to get a small team into Mariupol since Friday as part of efforts to escort beleaguered civilians out and aid in, said the team held by police in Manhush was released overnight. It did not identify the nationality of the police involved, but Manhush is under Russian control.
The ICRC said in a statement that the team’s focus now is on the evacuation operation, and the “incident yesterday shows how volatile and complex the operation to facilitate safe passage around Mariupol has been for our team.”
Jason Straziuso, an ICRC spokesman, said the team was “not planning on trying to enter Mariupol today. Our team’s humanitarian efforts today are focused on helping the evacuation efforts in nearby areas.”
___
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Denmark’s Foreign Ministry says the country is expelling 15 Russian intelligence officers who worked at Russia’s Embassy in Copenhagen.
The ministry said the Russian ambassador was informed of the decision on Tuesday. It said Denmark strongly condemned “Russia’s brutality against Ukrainian civilians in Bucha” and stressed that “deliberate attacks on civilians are a war crime.”
The officers have two weeks to leave Denmark. Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod said “they pose a risk to our national security that we cannot ignore.”
The move came after France and Germany on Monday announced the expulsion of dozens of Russians with diplomatic status.
France plans to expel 35. The French Foreign Ministry cited national security reasons for the expulsions, saying the Russian diplomats were conducting “activities contrary to our security interests.” It gave no details.
___
MADRID -- A senior Spanish official says it is “very hard” for the European Union to take measures against Russia’s natural gas sector because some of the bloc’s countries are dependent on it for their energy supply and the EU’s strength lies in its unity.
Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister for ecological transition, said Tuesday “it is very difficult to explain to European public opinion and Ukrainian society that we are still importing Russian energy that finances this war” in Ukraine.
The EU gets around 40% of its natural gas from Russia.
She said the energy imports create “obvious moral tension,” adding that accusations of Russian war crimes in Bucha in recent days increased the pressure on the EU to act.
She said Spain should invest in industrial-scale solar power facilities to improve the EU’s energy self-sufficiency.
___
LVIV, Ukraine — Seven humanitarian corridors will be open on Tuesday, including from the besieged port city of Mariupol and the Russian-controlled Berdyansk, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on the messaging app Telegram.
According to Vereshchuk’s post, residents of Mariupol and Berdyansk will be able to leave to Zaporizhzhia on their own transport. Corridors will also be open from the city of Tokmak in the Zaporizhzhia region and cities of Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Popasna and Hirske in the Luhansk region.
Vereshchuk said in the same post that the Russian troops “don’t allow anyone to enter Mariupol,” and that the Russians “blocked the representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross” in the settlement of Manhush just west of Mariupol.
Vereshchuk said that, after negotiations, the Red Cross representatives “were released at night and sent to Zaporizhzhia.”
It was not immediately clear from Vereshchuk’s statement whether Russia has agreed to halt the fighting along the announced corridors. Some of the Ukrainian efforts to evacuate civilians via humanitarian corridors had previously failed as fighting along them continued even despite agreements with Russia.
___
LONDON — British defense officials say Ukrainian forces have taken back more territory as Russian troops continue to retreat in Ukraine’s north.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense says Ukrainian forces “have retaken key terrain” after forcing Russian units to retreat north of Kyiv and around the northern city of Chernihiv. The ministry says “low-level fighting is likely to continue in some parts of the newly recaptured regions, but diminish significantly over this week as the remainder of Russian forces withdraw.”
In an intelligence update posted online, the U.K. says many of the Russian units “are likely to require significant re-equipping and refurbishment before being available to redeploy for operations in eastern Ukraine.”
Ukrainian and Western officials say Russia is refocusing its offensive on the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
___
BERLIN — Germany’s president is admitting mistakes in policy toward Russia in his previous job as foreign minister.
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier served twice as ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s foreign minister, most recently from 2013 to 2017, and before that as ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s chief of staff. In that time, Germany pursued dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin and cultivated close energy ties.
Steinmeier told ZDF television Tuesday that “we failed on many points,” including efforts to encourage Russia toward democracy and respecting human rights.
The president conceded that “there were different assessments” of Russia among European countries. He added: “It is true that we should have taken the warnings of our eastern European partners more seriously, particularly regarding the time after 2014” and the building of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Sticking to that project was a mistake that cost Germany “a lot of credit and credibility” in eastern Europe, he said. Chancellor Olaf Scholz suspended the pipeline in the week Russia invaded Ukraine.
UNITED NATIONS — A top official in the global campaign against the use of land mines is urging Russia to halt the use in Ukraine of these weapons that too often kill and maim civilians.
Alicia Arango Olmos, Colombia’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and this year’s president of the state parties to the 1997 convention banning the production and use of land mines, expressed deep concern at media reports that Russia is using land mines in its war in Ukraine.
She pointed to Human Rights Watch which said on March 29 that Ukrainian explosive ordnance disposal technician located banned ant-personnel mines in the eastern Kharkiv region a day earlier.
The rights group said Russia is known to possess the type of mines that were discovered, but Ukraine doesn’t have them.
Arango Olmos told a news conference Monday that Ukraine is one of the 164 state parties to the convention, but Russia is not.
Monday was the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action.
___
LVIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said he spoke Monday with U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres about events in Bucha in what appear to be deliberate killings in the town on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv.
“No place for Russia on the UN Human Rights Council,” Kuleba said on Twitter. “Ukraine will use all available UN mechanisms to collect evidence and hold Russian war criminals to account.”
Videos and photos of streets in Bucha strewn with corpses of what appeared to be civilians, some with their hands tied behind their back, have led to global revulsion, calls for tougher sanctions, and Russia’s suspension from the U.N.’s premiere human rights body, the Human Rights Council.
According to Ukraine’s prosecutor-general Iryna Venediktova, the bodies of 410 civilians have been removed from Kyiv-area towns that were recently retaken from Russian forces.
Associated Press journalists have reported seeing dozens of the bodies in various spots around Bucha, northwest of the capital.
—
PARIS — The French foreign ministry announced Monday that France has decided to expel “numerous” Russian diplomats, saying their “activities were contrary to our security interests.”
The announcement came hours after Germany said it was expelling 40 diplomat and Lithuania said it expelled the Russian ambassador and will recall its envoy in Moscow. No number was immediately given for how many are being expelled by France.
German news agency dpa quoted German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser as saying that the diplomats being expelled are those “whom we attribute to the Russian intelligence services.”
Faeser says that “we won’t allow this criminal war of aggression to also be conducted as an information war in Germany.”
—
UNITED NATIONS -- Britain’s U.N. ambassador says a previously planned U.N. Security Council meeting Tuesday is certain to focus “front and center” on the killing of large numbers of civilians in Ukraine.
Some of the dead were found with their hands tied behind their backs after Russian troops left the Ukrainian town of Bucha on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv.
The United Kingdom holds the council presidency in April, and Ambassador Barbara Woodward said Britain didn’t grant Russia’s request for a meeting on the situation in Bucha on Monday because “we didn’t see a good reason to have two meetings back to back on Ukraine.”
She told reporters that the Security Council will be briefed Tuesday by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths and U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo.
Woodward said that “the images that we saw coming out of Bucha over the weekend were harrowing, appalling, probable evidence of war crimes and possibly a genocide."
___
MOSCOW — Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says the country feels no impact from the expulsion of its diplomats by various European countries, and indicates Russia will respond in kind.
Medvedev was Russia's president from 2008 through 2012 and is now deputy chairman of the security council under President Vladimir Putin. Writing on the messaging app Telegram, Medvedev says that “everyone knows the response: it will be symmetrical and destructive for bilateral relations.”
His comments came after Germany expelled 40 Russian diplomats Monday and Lithuania expelled the Russian ambassador and said it would recall its envoy in Moscow. France on Monday also announced it will expel “numerous” Russian diplomats.
___
LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk says more than 1,550 civilians were evacuated on Monday from the besieged port of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine.
Vereshchuk said a total of 2,405 people were evacuated along a humanitarian corridor route running from Mariupol to the Ukraine-held city of Zaporizhzhia, with 1,553 of those coming from Mariupol itself and the rest from other locations in the heavily contested area.
She said the people used the dwindling number of private vehicles left in the area to get out of Mariupol and that a convoy of seven buses sent to help remained unable to enter the city to collect people.
Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, is a key Russian military objective that has faced horrific bombardment.
Vereshchuk added that 971 other people were evacuated from five locations in the eastern Luhansk region, where Russia is now focusing much of its military efforts. She accused Russia of “systematically breaching” a local cease-fire planned to facilitate evacuations there.
___
LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian prosecutor-general Iryna Venediktova told Ukrainian TV today that a “similar humanitarian situation” to Bucha exists in other parts of the country where Russian forces recently left, such as the areas around the northern cities of Sumy and Chernihiv.
Ukrainian authorities said the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in areas outside the Ukrainian capital, including Bucha, after last week’s withdrawal of Russian troops, many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture.
She also said the situation in Borodyanka, which is further from Kyiv and was also held by Russian forces until recently, may be even worse.
Venediktova didn’t specify what exactly had happened in Borodyanka but said “the worst situation in terms of the victims” is there.
___
BUCHAREST, Romania — Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed Romania’s parliament Monday evening in a video call in which the leader said had Ukraine not defended itself, Russia would have carried out atrocities like that of Bucha “all over Ukraine.”
Zelenskyy, who visited the town of Bucha on Monday to see the alleged crimes of Russia’s forces against Ukrainian civilians, shared grim video footage during his address that showed areas strewn with dead bodies. The Bucha killings — which Zelenskyy labeled a “genocide” — have become the center of worldwide outrage against Russia.
“The military tortured people and we have every reason to believe that there are many more people killed,” Zelenskyy said. “Much more than we know now.”
The Ukrainian leader also called for tougher sanctions, saying “Russia must be deprived of all resources, primarily economic” and said that the fate of the region will be decided by the outcome of the war in Ukraine.
Before the Ukrainian leader’s address, the president of Romania’s Chamber of Deputies, Marcel Ciolacu, said the last few days “have shown us horrible images that have overwhelmed and revolted us all.”
“I support a speedy investigation by the International Criminal Court,” Ciolacu said.
___
KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian government says that 18 journalists have been killed in the country since Russia’s invasion began on Feb. 24.
The Ukrainian Culture and Information Ministry said in a statement on social media Monday that each of the deaths and other crimes against media representatives will be investigated.
The ministry added that another 13 journalists had been wounded, eight had been abducted or taken prisoner and three journalists were still missing. It said that several crimes had been committed against journalists from 11 countries, including Ukraine.
___
LVIV, Ukraine -- The governor of Ukraine’s northern Sumy region says Russian forces no longer control any settlements in the area following their retreat, although some small groups of Russian troops remain.
The city of Sumy is near the border with Russia and was besieged by Russian troops when the invasion began in February, as other Russian forces pushed onward to join efforts to attack the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, from the northeast. Russia began withdrawing troops from the area around Kyiv last week and says it is now focusing its efforts on the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Sumy Gov. Dmytro Zhyvystskyy said on Ukrainian TV that “currently there are no occupied settlements” and that invading forces have pulled back across the border into Russia with their vehicles and artillery.
However, he added, “there are still individual units and small groups of Russian troops and now they are being caught” by the Ukrainian army and local Territorial Defense volunteers.
“A clean-up is happening across the whole territory of the region," he said.
___
THE HAGUE, Netherlands - The United States is allocating $250,000 to the global chemical weapons watchdog to provide “assistance and protection” to Ukraine if it is targeted or threatened with chemical weapons.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced the contribution Monday, following a meeting last Thursday between Marc Shaw, deputy assistant secretary at the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance and OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias.
Western nations have warned of possible chemical weapons attacks by Russian forces since Moscow launched its invasion of its neighbor in late February.
Shaw said in a statement that the United States “stands with Ukraine and all those who face the threat of chemical weapons use.”
He says he hopes the money will allow the organization to “quickly assist Ukraine as it seeks protection against chemical threats from the Russian government.”
___
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday called for a war crimes trial against Russian President Vladimir Putin and additional sanctions following reported atrocities in Bucha, one of the towns surrounding the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv where Ukrainian officials say the bodies of civilians have been found.
“What’s happening in Bucha is outrageous and everyone sees it,” Biden said.
Biden’s comments came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the city called the Russian actions “genocide.” Zelenskyy also called for the West to apply tougher sanctions against Russia.
Biden, however, stopped short of calling the actions genocide.
The bodies of 410 civilians have been removed from Kyiv-area towns that were recently retaken from Russian forces, said Ukraine’s prosecutor-general, Iryna Venediktova. Associated Press journalists saw the bodies of at least 21 people in various spots around Bucha, northwest of the capital.
“We have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue the fight. And we have to gather all the detail so this can be an actual -- have a war crimes trial,” Biden said.
___
WASHINGTON — A senior U.S. defense official says about two-thirds of the roughly 20 Russian battalion groups that had been located around Kyiv have now left and are either in Belarus or on their way there.
The U.S. has said that the “vast majority” of Russia’s approximately 125 battalion groups had been in Ukraine overall during the early fighting.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a military assessment, said the U.S. assesses that Russian forces are being resupplied and reinforced in Belarus and would then go back into Ukraine, potentially in the Donbas region in the east.
In addition, Russian troops have been moving out of Sumy and back into Russia. But they have been reinforcing and repositioning their artillery and putting more energy into the fight around the city of Izyum, which lies on a key route to the Donbas.
The official said overall, Russia has launched more than 1,400 missiles into Ukraine since the war began. In recent days, those strikes have been more focused on the east and on Mariupol. The defense official said the U.S. can’t independently verify details of the atrocities in Bucha, but has no reason to doubt the claims. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was speaking with Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov on Monday morning.
– AP writer Lolita Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
___
VILNIUS, Lithuania — Lithuania on Monday announced that it will expel Russia’s ambassador and recall its envoy in Moscow in reaction to increasing signs that Russian forces may have committed war crimes in Ukraine.
The Baltic country also decided to close a Russian consulate in the port city of Klaipeda, where it has a large offshore LNG import terminal.
“Lithuania strongly condemned the atrocities committed by the Russian armed forces in occupied Ukrainian cities, including the brutal massacres in Bucha. All war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Russian armed forces in Ukraine will not be forgotten,” Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said Monday.
He added that Lithuania’s ambassador to Ukraine was returning to Kyiv and that Lithuania’s European Union and NATO partners have been informed of its decision to expel the Russian ambassador. He called on them to do the same.
In neighboring Latvia, Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said that Riga will narrow diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation, according to the Baltic News Service. No decision was made regarding reducing the ties.
___
A Russian law enforcement agency says it has launched its own investigation into allegations that Ukrainian civilians were massacred in suburbs of Kyiv which were held by Russian troops, focusing on what it calls “false information” about Russian forces.
The Investigative Committee claims Ukrainian authorities made the allegations “with the aim of discrediting Russian troops” and that those involved should be investigated over possible breaches of a new Russian law banning what the government deems to be false information about its forces.
Russian law enforcement has launched several investigations since Russian troops entered Ukraine, typically into incidents such as the shelling of areas held by Russia-backed separatists.
___
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Russia needs to move quickly to negotiate an agreement to end the war.
Speaking on a visit Monday to the town of Bucha outside Kyiv, where hundreds of civilians were found dead after Russian troops’ retreat last week, Zelenskyy said the evidence of atrocities makes it hard to conduct talks with Russia.
“It’s very difficult to conduct negotiations when you see what they did here,” Zelenskyy said, adding that in Bucha and other places “dead people have been found in barrels, basements, strangled, tortured.” He added that the Russian leadership “needs to think faster if it has what to think with.”
Zelenskyy added that “the longer the Russian Federation drags it out, the worse it will exacerbate its own situation and this war.” Zelenskyy reaffirmed his criticism of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s opposition to Ukraine’s bid to join NATO, saying that she and other Western leaders who resisted the move should come to Bucha to “see what the flirting with the Russian Federation leads to.”
___
GENEVA — The United States plans to seek a suspension of Russia from its seat on the U.N.’s top human rights body in the wake of rising signs that Russian forces may have committed war crimes in Ukraine, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Monday.
According to a statement from her office, Thomas-Greenfield made the call for Russia to be stripped of its seat in the Human Rights Council in the wake of reports over the weekend about violence against civilians in the town of Bucha, near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, after Russian forces pulled out.
Any decision to suspend Russia would require a decision by the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
Russia and the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Britain, China, France and the United States — all currently have seats on the 47-member rights council, which is based in Geneva. The United States rejoined the council this year.
Thomas-Greenfield mentioned the U.S. plan in a meeting with Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca, her office said.
In New York, General Assembly spokeswoman Paulina Kubiak said on Monday that no request for a meeting on the issue has been received yet.
___
GENEVA — The United Nations’ top human rights official is calling for “independent and effective investigations” into what happened in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a statement Monday that she is “horrified by the images of civilians lying dead on the streets and in improvised graves.”
She added that “reports emerging from this and other areas raise serious and disturbing questions about possible war crimes, grave breaches of international humanitarian law and serious violations of international human rights law.”
Bachelet said it’s essential that all bodies be exhumed and identified so that victims’ families can be informed and the exact causes of death determined. She said all measures should be taken to preserve evidence.
“It is vital that all efforts are made to ensure there are independent and effective investigations into what happened in Bucha to ensure truth, justice and accountability, as well as reparations and remedy for victims and their families,” Bachelet said.
___
LONDON — Britain has condemned Russia’s “barbaric” killing of civilians in Ukraine, though it stopped short of calling Moscow’s actions genocide.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman, Max Blain, said bodies found in areas recently recaptured from Russia showed “despicable attacks against innocent civilians, and they are yet more evidence that Putin and his army are committing what appear to be war crimes in Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and some Western leaders have accused Russia of committing genocide.
Blain said “the prime minister’s view is that Putin crossed the threshold of barbarism some time ago,” but added that only a court can make a determination of genocide.
___
MOSCOW — Russia’s top diplomat has dismissed Ukraine’s accusations that Russian troops committed atrocities against its civilians as a staged provocation.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at the start of his talks Monday with U.N. Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths that Moscow sees the Ukrainian claim of a massacre of civilians in Bucha outside Kyiv as “a provocation that posed a direct threat to global peace and security.”
Lavrov noted that Russia has called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council but the U.K. that currently chairs it refused to convene it. He vowed to press the demand for holding the meeting.
Ukrainian authorities said the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in areas outside the Ukrainian capital after last week’s withdrawal of Russian troops, many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture. A growing number of world leaders have voiced outrage and called for tougher sanctions against Moscow.
Lavrov charged that the mayor of Bucha made no mention of atrocities against civilians a day after Russian troops left Bucha on Wednesday, but two days later scores of bodies were photographed scattered in the streets in what the Russian minister described as a “stage-managed anti-Russian provocation.”
___
MOSCOW — The Kremlin has strongly rejected the accusations that Russian troops committed atrocities against civilians in Ukraine and pushed for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that the Ukrainian claims that Russian troops had killed hundreds of civilians outside Kyiv can’t be trusted, adding that “we categorically reject the accusations.” Peskov’s comment in a conference call with reporters followed the Russian Defense Ministry’s statement accusing the Ukrainian authorities of stage-managing what it described as a “provocation” to smear Russia.
Ukrainian authorities have said the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in areas outside the Ukrainian capital after last week’s withdrawal of Russian troops, many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture. International leaders have condemned the reported atrocities and called for tougher sanctions against Moscow.
Peskov said that photo and video materials from the area reflected unspecified “manipulations” and urged international leaders to carefully analyze the facts and hear the Russian arguments before rushing to blame Moscow.
Russia has called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council but the U.K. which currently chairs it refused to convene it, according to Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian envoy at the international organization’s offices in Vienna.
Peskov said that Russia will keep pushing for the meeting, noting that Russia wants the issue to be discussed at the highest level.
___
BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top diplomat has joined a growing chorus of international criticism blaming the Russian armed forces for alleged atrocities committed against civilians in Ukraine.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says “the Russian authorities are responsible for these atrocities, committed while they had effective control of the area. They are subject to the international law of occupation.”
Borrell said Monday that the “haunting images of large numbers of civilian deaths and casualties, as well as destruction of civilian infrastructures show the true face of the brutal war of aggression Russia is waging against Ukraine and its people.”
Working with the U.S., U.K. and other international partners, the EU has been ramping up sanctions against Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February. Borrell says the 27-country bloc “will advance, as a matter of urgency, work on further sanctions against Russia.”