President Zelensky to address UN Security Council over Russian ‘genocide’
A visibly distressed Zelensky spent half an hour in Bucha, where he blamed Russian troops for the killings. PC. RONALDO SCHEMIDT AFP/File
Kyiv، TGO: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will address the UN Security Council on Tuesday, where he is expected to demand tough new sanctions on Moscow over killings in the town of Bucha he has called “war crimes” and “genocide”.
The speech, Zelensky’s first to the body since Russia’s invasion, comes after he made an emotional trip to Bucha outside the capital, where dozens of bodies were discovered after the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Horrific images of corpses lying in the streets, some with their hands bound behind them, have drawn international condemnation of Russia.
It has denied responsibility and suggested the images are fake or that the deaths occurred after Russian forces pulled out of the area.
But newly released satellite photographs taken by Maxar Technologies in mid-March, before the Russian withdrawal, showed what appeared to be bodies in some of the same places they were later found by Ukrainian troops and seen by journalists.
On Monday, wearing body armor and visibly distressed, Zelensky spent half an hour in Bucha, where he blamed Russian troops for the killings.
“These are war crimes and it will be recognised by the world as genocide,” he said.
Later in his nightly address, he demanded “the sanctions response to Russia’s massacre of civilians must finally be powerful”.
“But… did hundreds of our people have to die in agony for some European leaders to finally understand that the Russian state deserves the most severe pressure?” he asked in the video posted to Telegram.
He also called for additional weapons from Western allies, saying more equipment could have saved thousands.
“I do not blame you -– I blame only the Russian military,” he said. “But you could have helped.”
