Conflicts & War

After Bucha visit, Zelenskyy warns casualties could be higher in Borodyanka

International Desk, Apr 5 (EFE).- After visiting the devastated city of Bucha and others liberated from Russian troops, the president of Ukraine on Tuesday warned that casualties could be even higher in other locations such as Borodyanka.

“Today has been a really difficult day. Emotional,” Volodomyr Zelenskyy said in a video message in after returning from the liberated cities of Stoyanka, Irpin and Bucha.

“This area does not look like yesterday. The bodies of killed people, killed Ukrainians have already been taken from most streets. But in the yards, in the houses, the dead still remain,” he said.

Zelenskyy said that the government has started an investigation into everything the Russian troops have done, and that “there is information about more than three hundred people killed and tortured in Bucha alone. It is likely that the list of victims will be much larger when the whole city is checked.”

The Ukrainian authorities have information that the number of victims may be even higher in Borodyanka and some other liberated cities, he said, denouncing that in many villages in the liberated districts of the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions “the occupiers did things that the locals had not seen even during the Nazi occupation 80 years ago.”

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said on national TV that “the worst situation with civilian victims is in Borodyanka,” but did not go into details.

The government is doing everything possible to “identify all the Russian military involved in these crimes as soon as possible. Everything to punish them. This will be a joint work of our state with the European Union and international institutions, in particular with the International Criminal Court,” added the president.

Zelenskyy affirmed that “all the crimes of the occupiers are documented. The necessary procedural basis is provided for bringing the guilty Russian military to justice for every crime they commit,” and stressed that he is interested in the “most complete, transparent investigation, the results of which will be known and explained to the entire international community.”

However, he said that “Russian propagandists” are again trying to deny the accusations against its army. “The same lies. They are trying to distort the facts.”

“They are already launching a false campaign to conceal their guilt in the mass killings of civilians in Mariupol. They will do dozens of stage interviews, re-edit recordings and will kill people specifically to make it look like they were killed by someone else,” he insisted.

On the other hand, Zelenskyy reiterated that “the sanctions response to Russia’s massacre of civilians must finally be powerful.”

“I stress once again: Ukraine must get all the necessary weapons to drive the occupiers out of our land as soon as possible, to liberate our cities,” he said, stating that he will continue to say the same before all foreign dignitaries.

Specifically, he mentioned that on Tuesday he will address “the Spanish Parliament. And also the UN Security Council.”

Zelensky again warned that the Ukrainian authorities are preparing “for even more brutal activity of the occupiers in the eastern and southern directions. We know what they are going to do in Donbas. We know what they are going to do near Kharkiv, in some other parts of the country. Russia concentrates a significant amount of military and equipment there. And this activity shows that the sanctions imposed against Russia are not enough. There will be more.”

If Moscow does not start “to really seek peace, really negotiate peace, they will put their country in the worst condition in 50 years,” the Ukrainian president predicted. EFE

int-mmg/tw

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