Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, April 3: Ukraine is claimed to have regained control of “the whole Kyiv region” after invading Russian forces retreated from some key towns near the Ukrainian capital, even as air strike hit strategic Black Sea port Odessa on Sunday morning and the Ukrainian authorities claimed to have unveiled a “mass grave” of about 300 civilians killed by the retreating Russia forces in Bucha town on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Despite the mass destruction peace talks seemed moving ahead with Ukraine’s top negotiator in peace talks with Russia said Moscow had “verbally” agreed to key Ukrainian proposals, raising hopes that talks to end fighting are moving forward.
Russia, which branded Ukraine a “hostile nation,” however, was none too optimistic. “Russia’s talks with a “hostile” Ukraine have not been easy, but the main thing is that they are continuing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday. “Ukraine is a very difficult country, very difficult for us. In its current state it is hostile towards us,” he said. “The main thing is that the talks continue, either in Istanbul or somewhere else,” said Peskov, adding that the negotiations were “not easy.”
Russia would like to continue talks in neighbouring Belarus but Kyiv opposed the idea, he said. Peskov said Moscow had launched the invasion to “save” two eastern regions seized by Russian-backed separatists in 2014 and said he trusted that the Russian language would be restored to its rightful place in the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine was needed “to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide”. By this meant those whose first or only language is Russian. Ukraine dismisses as invented the accusations of genocide.
After Kyiv had warned that Russia was trying to consolidate its troops in the south. “Odessa was attacked from the air,” Ukraine Minister Anton Herashchenko said. Odessa, a historic city of around one million people, is Ukraine’s largest Black Sea port. The blasts sent up at least three columns of black smoke with flames visible apparently in an industrial area. “Air strikes rocked Ukraine’s strategic Black Sea port Odessa early Sunday morning,” an interior ministry official said after Kyiv had warned that Russia was trying to consolidate its troops in the south. “Odessa was attacked from the air,” Anton Herashchenko, adviser to the interior minister, wrote on his Telegram account. “Fires were reported in some areas. Some of the missiles were shot down by air defence,” he claimed.
The attack comes as Russian forces appeared to be withdrawing from the country’s north. On Friday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Russia was consolidating and preparing “powerful strikes” in the south, joining a chorus of Western assessments that Moscow’s troops were regrouping.
Ukraine claimed that the retreating Russian troops have left scenes of devastation in the city of Bucha, just outside capital Kyiv, where nearly 300 people have been buried in a mass grave, mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said. “All these people with their hands tied behind were shot, killed, in the back of the head,” Fedoruk said.
“The killing of civilians in the town of Bucha near the Ukrainian capital was a ‘deliberate massacre,’ Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Sunday, after the hasty retreat of Russian forces from the area. “Bucha massacre was deliberate. Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can. We must stop them and kick them out. I demand new devastating G7 sanctions NOW,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
“Kyiv region. 21st century Hell. Bodies of men and women, who were killed with their hands tied. The worst crimes of Nazism have returned to EU,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak tweeted. “This was purposely done by Russia. Impose an embargo on energy resources, close seaports. Stop the murders!” The evidence has emerged of possible civilian killings around Kyiv as the Russian army has pulled back in the face of ferocious resistance from Ukrainian forces.
In Bucha, the bodies of nearly 300 civilians were found in mass graves after Russian troops withdrew, local officials said. Some media personnel said they saw at least 20 bodies, all in civilian clothing, strewn across a single street. One had his hands tied behind his back with a white cloth, and his Ukrainian passport left open beside his body.
EU chief Charles Michel on Sunday pledged further sanctions on Moscow as he condemned “atrocities” carried out by Russian forces near Ukraine’s capital Kyiv. “Shocked by haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army in Kyiv liberated region #BuchaMassacre,” European Council head Michel wrote on Twitter. “EU is assisting Ukraine & NGO’s in gathering of necessary evidence for pursuit in international courts.” British Foreign Minister Liz Truss said as evidence mounted of “appalling acts” in the Ukrainian towns of Irpin and Bucha, Russia’s attacks on civilians must be investigated as “war crimes.”
A leading rights group said on Sunday it had documented what it described as “apparent war crimes” committed by Russian military forces against civilians in Ukraine. Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement saying it had found “several cases of Russian military forces committing laws-of-war violations” in Russian-controlled regions such as Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv. The statement, published in Warsaw, came a day after the Bucha massacre came to the fore.
Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova has accused Russian forces of opening fire on peaceful demonstrators, injuring four with “severe burns”, in the southern city of Enerhodar occupied by Moscow’s forces. Veteran war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte called for the International Criminal Court to quickly issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over actions in Ukraine.
Ukraine Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Maliar claimed that Ukraine had regained control of “the whole Kyiv region” after invading Russian forces retreated from some key towns near the Ukrainian capital. The Red Cross has gone to the besieged southern port of Mariupol for a fresh evacuation effort after it was forced to turn back on Friday. “They are spending the night en route to Mariupol and are yet to reach the city,” a spokesperson said.
A top UN official is set to fly to Moscow on Sunday and then on to Kyiv to try and secure a “humanitarian ceasefire” in Ukraine, said the body’s chief Antonio Guterres. Both Russia and Ukraine have agreed to meet Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Guterres said.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian troops retaking areas around Kyiv and Chernihiv were not allowing Russians to retreat without a fight, but are “shelling them. They are destroying everyone they can.” Zelensky, 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.”
Ukrainian troops moved cautiously to retake territory north of the country’s capital on Saturday, using cables to pull the bodies of civilians off streets of one town out of fear that Russian forces may have left them booby-trapped. Zelensky had 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.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Saturday said the operation to help people leave the besieged city of Mariupol was continuing, hours after Russia said it had failed and blamed the organization. Russia’s defence ministry said aid convoys had not been able to reach Mariupol on Friday or Saturday and blamed “destructive actions” by the ICRC. A Red Cross convoy traveling to the Ukrainian port turned around on Friday because it had become impossible to proceed with its mission to begin evacuating civilians, the ICRC said.