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KYIV, Ukraine — The United States and Europe are planning new sanctions to punish Moscow over civilian killings in Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said more deaths were likely to be uncovered in areas seized from Russian invaders. Russia said the deaths had been staged by the West to discredit it.
Calls for war crimes investigation
- 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 the Kremlin's troops of the worst atrocities since World War II.
- Ukraine said 50 bodies found in Bucha had been victims of extra-judicial killings by Russian troops. Reuters could not verify the events, but its journalists saw the bodies of civilians scattered over the town at the weekend.
- Satellite images showed a 45-foot-long trench dug in the grounds of a church where a mass grave was found.
- The Kremlin categorically denied any accusations related to the murder of civilians in the town, saying the graves and corpses had been staged by Ukraine to tarnish Russia.
- Russia said it would present to the U.N. Security Council "empirical evidence" of what it called lies by Ukraine and its Western sponsors.
- U.S. President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal and urged a trial.
- The U.S. said it would push for Russia to be suspended from the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Fighting
- Ukraine's general staff said Russian forces attacked the southern city of Mykolayiv with cluster munitions banned by the Geneva Conventions and whole blocks of civilian buildings, including a children's hospital, came under fire.
- Russia probably plans to shift its focus to the south and east of Ukraine, and is refitting forces in Belarus, U.S. officials said.
- Heavy fighting has continued in Mariupol, British military intelligence said. Zelenskyy said the military situation in the southern port city was "very difficult."
Economy
- The United States stopped Russia from making dollar payments on sovereign bonds from reserves held in U.S. banks, pushing it closer to a historic default.
- Western powers said more sanctions on Russia would be imposed in the coming days.
- Thousands of autoworkers have been furloughed and food prices are soaring as Western sanctions pummel the small Russian city of Kaluga and its flagship foreign carmakers.
Peace talks
- Zelenskyy said negotiating with Russia to end fighting would be a challenge but "we have no other choice."
Quotes
- "Every Euro, every cent that you receive from Russia or that you send to Russia has blood, it is bloody money and the blood of this money is Ukrainian blood," Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
- "These are fakes that matured in the cynical imagination of Ukrainian propaganda," Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev said.
