Boris Johnson has said the actions of Russian forces in Ukraine appear close to “genocide” as he pledged Britain will be in the “front rank” of nations imposing new sanctions on Moscow.
The US and the EU are both planning punishing new measures against Vladimir Putin’s regime amid a wave of international revulsion at reports of rape and the killings of civilians by his troops.
Ukrainian officials have said the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been discovered in Bucha and other towns around the capital, Kyiv, recaptured from the Russians as their forces pull back.
Speaking during a visit to a hospital in Welwyn Garden City, Mr Johnson said the latest disclosures underline the need for the international community to tighten the economic pressure on the Kremlin.
“I’m afraid, when you look at what’s happening in Bucha, the revelations that we are seeing from what Putin has done in Ukraine doesn’t look far short of genocide to me,” he said.
“It is no wonder people are responding in the way that they are.
“I have no doubt that the international community, Britain very much in the front rank, will be moving again in lockstep to impose more sanctions and more penalties on Vladimir Putin’s regime.”
The White House said the US and other Western allies intend to ban all new investment in Russia while tightening sanctions on its financial institutions and state-owned enterprises and on government officials and their family members.
Earlier, the former head of the British army Lord Dannatt said Putin’s war crimes looked “increasingly like genocide plotted from the top”.
Lord Dannatt issued the grim assessment as Nato chiefs were set to hold high-level talks on how to swiftly gather evidence of war crimes in Ukraine to “hold Putin accountable” for the atrocities being committed in Bucha, near Kyiv, Mariupol, and other towns and cities.
Speaking on Sky News, the peer said: “The war crimes are stacking up to the point that it looks like a concerted effort to reduce the Ukrainian population, and that is getting very close to the definition of genocide.
“It’s absolutely right and proper that all these war crimes are being chronicled and evidence is being gathered.
“It is looking to me increasingly like genocide that is plotted from the top. The top, therefore, must bear responsibility and maybe one day, even if not in a physical court but in a court of history, be condemned.”
Lord Dannatt was unsure if Mr Putin or his senior generals would face trial, but added that it is still possible.
He explained: “If you think back to the early, dark days of the Bosnian civil war, it seemed inconceivable that Milosevic (former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic) and Karadzic (Bosnian Serb former leader Radovan Karadzic) would find their way into court, but they did.
“It became perfectly possible to trace what had happened on the ground all the way up to them through this concept of command responsibility such that they were convicted.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that Russia must be held accountable over the allegations of war atrocities as the West prepared to expand sanctions to include a ban on new investments in Russia, as well as cutting back on buying coal, gas and oil.
He also showed the gathered top diplomats a harrowing video of civilians murdered in Bucha, where women were raped by Russian troops, mass graves discovered, and bodies found with signs of torture.
‘What more can we be doing’
Ahead of meeting of Nato in Brussels, the US ambassador to the military alliance, Julianne Smith, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “In the wake of these horrific images, the question for Nato allies continues to be what more can we be doing.
“Number one, what more can we be doing in this moment to support Ukraine, but secondly how can we quickly gather the evidence we need to then hold Putin accountable and that is part of the discussion that ministers will be having here today in Brussels.”
She stressed that the US had already provided more than $2.3 billion of lethal assistance to Ukraine since January 2021 and would continue to assess “the needs” of Ukraine, particularly in relation to air defence but also possibly anti-ship weapons, and look what equipment could be supplied.
She added that Washington had spoken with Nato allies about providing Soviet era equipment to the Kyiv government which its forces are trained to use.
The Czech government is already reported to be supplying tanks to Ukraine.
Responding to Mr Zelensky speech on Tuesday, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the Council that Russian troops were not targeting civilians, dismissing accusations of abuse as lies.
But the Kremlin, which denied an invasion was planned, has put out a version of events which flies in the face of so much footage and reports of the reality on the ground.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said responsible world powers and global leaders need to “show backbone - and stand up to Russia’s dangerous and unprovoked threat against Ukraine and the world”.
