Foreign Secretary Liz Truss
(Picture: PA Wire)Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has said the world was shocked by the scenes in Bucha.
Horrifying pictures emerged showing slain bodies of adults and children in Bucha, 60km west of Kyiv, with claims some were tortured and that women and girls were raped.
It comes after President Volodymyr Zelensky told of his horror of Russian war crimes in UN Security Council address.
At a press conference in Warsaw, the Foreign Secretary urged the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe to launch an investigation into the atrocities committed in Ukraine.
“We have all been shocked by the scenes from Bucha,” she said.
“These are appalling acts of the kind that we thought we left in the 20th century. We will hold those responsible to account for what they’ve done, in particular the reports of rape and sexual assault.
“I want the OSCE to investigate so that the full reality is brought to light.”
Elsewhere in her speech, the politician said Western sanctions are pushing the Russian economy back into “the Soviet era” and having a “crippling impact”.
She added: “We have frozen over 350 billion US dollars (£266 billion) of (Vladimir) Putin’s war chest, making over 60% of the regime’s 604 billion US dollars (£459 billion) foreign currency reserves unavailable.
“Our co-ordinated sanctions are pushing the Russian economy back to the Soviet era.”
Ms Truss will use a meeting of G7 allies on Thursday to push for further sanctions on Russia.
“I will be urging our Nato and G7 partners to go further in sanctions by joining us in banning Russian ships from our ports, cracking down on more Russian banks, going after industries that are filling Putin’s war chest, like gold, and agreeing a clear timetable to eliminate our imports of Russian oil, coal and gas,” she said.
The European Union’s executive branch proposed Tuesday 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 the EU needed to increase the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin after what she described as “heinous crimes” carried out around Kyiv, with evidence that Russian troops may have deliberately killed Ukrainian civilians.
