Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Samantha Lock (now); Abené Clayton ,Gloria Oladipo, Léonie Chao-Fong and Martin Belam (earlier)

Zelenskiy says more than 300 people killed and tortured in Bucha – as it happened

Russia Ukraine United States Kyiv Bucha United Kingdom Volodymyr Zelenksyy AFPGetty Images Maxar Technologies Kremlin

This liveblog is now closed but you can follow all the latest developments in Ukraine on our new blog in the link below.

Here are the latest developments before we launch our new liveblog.

  • US president Joe Biden called the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, a “war criminal” and said he would call for a war crimes trial as global outrage over claims of civilian killings by Russian soldiers in the Ukraine town of Bucha continued to mount. “We have to gather the information. We have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue to fight, and we have to get all the detail [to] have a war crimes trial. This guy is brutal and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous,” he said on Monday.
  • The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU was ready to send investigations teams to Ukraine to document alleged Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity. She said she had spoken to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy about the “dreadful murders” that were uncovered over the weekend.
  • Zelenskiy visited Bucha, about 30km north-west of Kyiv, wearing body armour and surrounded by military personnel on Monday. He spoke of the death and destruction in the recently liberated towns of Stoyanka, Irpin and Bucha. “The cities are simply ruined,” he said, adding that authorities had begun an investigation into possible war crimes. Zelenskiy said there was information to suggest more than 300 people were killed and tortured in Bucha alone.
  • The Ukrainian president warned civilian casualties may be higher in other towns. “Now, there is information that in Borodyanka and some other liberated Ukrainian towns, the number of casualties of the occupiers may be even much higher,” he said, referring to a town 25 km (16 miles) west of Bucha.
  • Zelenskiy also addressed western leaders, criticising what he described as delayed action against Russia. “Did hundreds of our people really have to die in agony for some European leaders to finally understand that the Russian state deserves the most severe pressure?” he asked. Referring to military aid, he said: “If we had already got what we needed ... we could have saved thousands of people.”
  • Zelenskiy will address the United Nations security council on Tuesday, after he said it was in Kyiv’s interest to have an open investigation into the killing of civilians in Ukraine.
  • Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said evidence of civilian killings in Bucha were just the “tip of the iceberg”. Speaking at a joint press conference with the UK foreign minister, Liz Truss, he said the “horrors of Bucha, Mariupol, and other places” demand “serious G7 and EU sanctions”.
  • The bodies of five civilians, including the mayor, were found with their hands tied in the village of Motyzhyn, 45km west of Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities said. The mayor, Olga Sukhenko, her husband and their son, were abducted by Russian troops on 24 March, police said. “They tortured and murdered the whole family of the village head,” Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry, said.
  • Zelenskiy said the country is preparing for “even more brutal activity” of Russian forces in the east and south of Ukraine. “We know what they are going to do in Donbas,” he said. Ukraine’s defence ministry spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said Russia is attacking the cities of Rubizhne and Popasna in the eastern Luhansk region, while preparing an attack on the city of Severodonetsk and working to capture Mariupol.
  • US national security adviser Jake Sullivan appeared to corroborate the claims, saying “Russia is repositioning its forces to concentrate its offensive operations in eastern and parts of southern Ukraine” and this new phase of Russia’s invasion “could be measured in months or longer”.
  • The Red Cross said that a team sent to help evacuate civilians from Mariupol is being held by police in Russian-controlled territory. The team was stopped on Monday while carrying out humanitarian efforts to help lead a safe passage corridor for civilians and “is being held in the town of Mangush, 20km west of Mariupol,” ICRC spokeswoman Caitlin Kelly told AFP.
  • Russia has backed a new, self-proclaimed mayor of Mariupol, who is collaborating with Russian forces, Reuters reported.
  • Washington is working on more economic sanctions against Russia to be announced this week, Sullivan said, adding that “options that relate” to the country’s lucrative energy industry are on the table.
  • UK foreign secretary Liz Truss said she will be working with allies to ban Russian ships from western ports, crack down on Russian banks, and agree to “a clear timetable to eliminate our imports of Russian oil, gas and coal”.
  • The US will request Russia’s removal from the UN human rights council. During a visit to Romania, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, called for the international body to suspend Russia.
  • The head of the office of the Ukrainian president, Andriy Yermak, said a “very big historical mistake” was made when “specific Allied countries and specific leaders started a game with Russia” 14 years ago at the Nato summit in Bucharest, according to comments published on the website of Ukraine’s presidential office.
  • Russia’s latest sovereign bond coupon payments have been stopped, a source familiar with the matter and a spokeswoman for the US Treasury told Reuters, putting it closer to a historic default. The latest sovereign bond coupon payments have not received authorisation by the US Treasury to be processed by correspondent bank JPMorgan, the source said.
  • Cyber hacking group Anonymous has claimed to have leaked the personal data of 120,000 Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. “Personal data of 120,000 Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine was leaked,” the group said in a statement on Twitter on Monday.

China’s foreign minister Wang Yi spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, in a phone call on Monday, Reuters reports, with Beijing again calling on talks to end the conflict in Ukraine.

The call, which Beijing said was made at Ukraine’s request, was the first reported high-level conversation between the countries since 1 March, when Kuleba asked Beijing to use its ties with Moscow to stop Russia’s invasion, the Ukrainian foreign ministry said at the time.

“Wars end eventually. The key is how to reflect on the pain, to maintain lasting security in Europe and establish a balanced, effective and sustainable European security mechanism,” Wang said, according to the ministry.

“China stands ready to play a constructive role in this regard in an objective position.”
Kuleba tweeted: “Grateful to my Chinese counterpart for solidarity with civilian victims.”

“We both share the conviction that ending the war against Ukraine serves common interests of peace, global food security and international trade,” he said.

China, which has grown closer with Moscow in recent years while it has also had cordial diplomatic ties and strong trade links with Ukraine, has refused to condemn Russia’s attack on the country or to call its actions there an invasion.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the legal basis is being put in place to bring “culpable Russian troops” to justice over alleged atrocities.

It is now 2022. And we have many more tools than those who prosecuted the Nazis after the second world war,” he said.

Watch his latest nightly address below.

Air raid alerts have sounded across Ukraine, as the country prepares for another day of Russian attacks.

The Kyiv Independent has reported that air raid sirens have gone off in “almost every region”.

Although commercial surrogacy is illegal in most of the world, Ukraine is one of the few countries where it is still possible for a foreign couple to employ someone to carry a pregnancy. Each year, an estimated 2,000 to 2,500 children are born via surrogacy in Ukraine.

Sirin Kale has been reporting on how the Russian invasion has complicated an already controversial practice, leaving babies stranded in bunkers and pregnant women suddenly trying to get out of the country.

Annabel (not her real name), a teacher in her 40s from Suffolk, tells Nosheen Iqbal that after a decade of struggling with fertility issues, she and her husband decided to find a surrogate in Ukraine to carry their first child. Now, they’re trying to help their pregnant surrogate and her young son, who left Ukraine for Poland, join them in the UK.

Listen to the latest Today in Focus episode: Babies in bunkers, the surrogate mothers and infants trapped in Ukraine.

Recent images of the destruction of Ukraine’s cities continue to show a bleak and war-torn landscape.

A local resident pushes a cart with humanitarian aid past a damaged apartment building in Mariupol.
A local resident pushes a cart with humanitarian aid past a damaged apartment building in Mariupol. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
A local resident plants tulips near a damaged apartment building in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine.
A local resident plants tulips near a damaged apartment building in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
Broken Russian tanks and combat vehicles seen near the village of Dmitrievka.
Broken Russian tanks and combat vehicles seen near the village of Dmitrievka. Photograph: Mykhaylo Palinchak/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

Russia will respond proportionately to the expulsion of its diplomats from a number of western countries, former Russian president and deputy head of security council Dmitry Medvedev said late on Monday.

In a post on his Telegram channel, Medvedev said:

Everyone knows the answer: it will be symmetrical and destructive for bilateral relations.

Who have they punished? First of all, themselves.

If this continues, it will be fitting, as I wrote back on 26th February - to slam shut the door on Western embassies.

It will be cheaper for everyone. And then we will end up just looking at each other in no other way than through gunsights.”

On Monday, France said it would expel 35 Russian diplomats over Moscow’s actions in Ukraine and Germany declared “significant number” of Russian diplomats as undesirable.

Russia’s sovereign bond coupon payments stopped: US Treasury source

Russia’s latest sovereign bond coupon payments have been stopped, a source familiar with the matter and a spokeswoman for the US Treasury told Reuters, putting it closer to a historic default.

The latest sovereign bond coupon payments have not received authorisation by the US Treasury to be processed by correspondent bank JPMorgan, the source said.

The payments were due on bonds due in 2022 and 2042.

The correspondent bank processes the coupon payments from Russia, sending them to the payment agent to distribute to overseas bondholders.

Previously, coupon payments on sovereign bonds had been processed, sources told Reuters.

A US Treasury spokeswoman also confirmed that certain payments were no longer being allowed.

“Today is the deadline for Russia to make another debt payment,” the spokeswoman said. “Beginning today, the US Treasury will not permit any dollar debt payments to be made from Russian government accounts at U.S. financial institutions. Russia must choose between draining remaining valuable dollar reserves or new revenue coming in, or default.”

The country has a 30-day grace period to make the payment, the source said.

Russia, which has a total of 15 international bonds outstanding with a face value of around $40bn, has managed to avoid defaulting on its international debt so far despite unprecedented western sanctions.

If Russia fails to make any of its upcoming bond payments within their pre-defined timeframes, or pays in roubles where dollars, euros or another currency is specified, it will constitute a default.

Facebook owner Meta Platforms briefly restricted hashtags related to civilian deaths in northern Ukraine, where bodies of people shot at close range were found in a town seized back from Russian forces, a company spokesman confirmed on Monday.

Meta spokesman Andy Stone said automated systems that scan for violent imagery on Facebook and Instagram, which the company also owns, were responsible for blocking hashtags including #bucha and #buchamassacre.

“This happened automatically because of the graphic content people posted using these hashtags. When we were made aware of the issue yesterday, we acted quickly to unblock the hashtags,” he wrote on Twitter.

Facebook and Instagram permit the posting of graphic and violent content when it is shared to raise awareness of possible human rights abuses, but deletes the content if it is extremely explicit or celebrates suffering.

Cyber hacking group Anonymous has claimed to have leaked the personal data of 120,000 Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

“Personal data of 120,000 Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine was leaked,” the group said in a statement on Twitter on Monday.

“All soldiers participating in the invasion of Ukraine should be subjected to a war crime tribunal,” it added.

The collective declared “cyber war against the Russian government” just days after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began.

“The hacking will continue until Russia stops their aggression,” the group added.

Interim summary

If you have just joined us, here is a snapshot of where the crisis currently stands:

  • US president Joe Biden called the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, a war criminal and said he would call for a war crimes trial. “You may remember I got criticised for calling Putin a war criminal,” Biden told reporters on Monday. “Well, the truth of the matter – we saw it happen in Bucha – he is a war criminal.” “But we have to gather the information. We have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue to fight, and we have to get all the detail [to] have a war crimes trial. This guy is brutal and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous.”
  • The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU was ready to send joint investigations teams to Ukraine to document the alleged Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity. She said she had spoken with Zelenskiy about the “dreadful murders” that were uncovered over the weekend.
  • Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited Bucha, about 45km northwest of Kyiv, wearing body armour and surrounded by military personnel on Monday. He spoke of the death and destruction in the recently liberated towns of Stoyanka, Irpin, Bucha. “The cities are simply ruined,” he said. Zelenskiy added authorities have begun an investigation into possible war crimes, adding that there is information to suggest about more than three hundred people were killed and tortured in Bucha alone.
  • Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said the evidence of civilian killings from the town of Bucha are just the “tip of the iceberg”. Speaking at a joint press conference with the UK foreign minister, Liz Truss, he said the “horrors of Bucha, Mariupol, and other places” demand “serious G7 and EU sanctions”.
  • Zelenskiy addressed western leaders, criticising what he described as delayed action against Russia. “Did hundreds of our people really have to die in agony for some European leaders to finally understand that the Russian state deserves the most severe pressure?” he asked. Referring to military aid, he added: “If we had already got what we needed ... we could have saved thousands of people.”
  • The bodies of five civilians including those of the mayor, her husband and son, were found with their hands tied in the village of Motyzhyn, 45km west of Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities have said. The mayor, Olga Sukhenko, her husband and their son, were abducted by Russian troops on 24 March, police said. “They tortured and murdered the whole family of the village head,” Anton Herashchenko, an advisor to Ukraine interior ministry, added.
  • Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said the town of Borodyanka would be the worst-hit by the Russian invasion in the Kyiv region. Speaking on national television, Venediktova said the number of victims in Borodyanka, around 23km west of Bucha, would be higher than anywhere else but did not provide further details.
  • Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he will address the United Nations security council on Tuesday, after saying it is in Kyiv’s interest to have the most open investigation into the killing of civilians in Ukraine.
  • Zelenskiy said Ukraine is preparing for “even more brutal activity” of Russian forces in the east and south of Ukraine. “We know what they are going to do in Donbas,” he added. Ukraine’s defence ministry spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said Russia is currently attacking the cities of Rubizhne and Popasna in the eastern Luhansk region, while preparing an attack on the city of Severodonetsk and working to capture Mariupol.
  • US national security advisor Jake Sullivan appeared to corroborate these claims, saying “Russia is repositioning its forces to concentrate its offensive operations in eastern and parts of southern Ukraine” and this new phase of Russia’s invasion “could be measured in months or longer.” Sullivan said that Washington is also working on more economic sanctions against Russia to be announced this week, adding that “options that relate” to Russia’s lucrative energy industry are on the table.
  • UK foreign secretary Liz Truss said she will also be working with allies to ban Russian ships from western ports, crack down on Russian banks, and agree to “a clear timetable to eliminate our imports of Russian oil, gas and coal”.
  • The Red Cross said that a team sent to help evacuate civilians from Mariupol is being held by police in Russian-controlled territory. The team was stopped on Monday while carrying out humanitarian efforts to help lead a safe passage corridor for civilians and “is being held in the town of Mangush, 20km west of Mariupol,” ICRC spokeswoman Caitlin Kelly told AFP.
  • The head of the office of the Ukrainian president, Andriy Yermak, said a “very big historical mistake” was made when “specific Allied countries and specific leaders started a game with Russia” 14 years ago at the Nato summit in Bucharest, according to comments published on the website of Ukraine’s presidential office.
  • Russia has backed a new, self-proclaimed mayor of Mariupol, who is collaborating with Russian forces, reports Reuters.
  • The United States will request Russia’s removal from the UN human rights council. During a visit to Romania, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, called for the international body to suspend Russia ideally some time this week.

Updated

We have a little more detail surrounding the Red Cross team believed to be held hostage in a town near the besieged southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol currently under Russian control.

The Red Cross said that a team sent to help evacuate civilians from Mariupol was being held by police in Russian-controlled territory.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which for days has been trying to get a team to Mariupol to help provide safe passage for thousands of civilians seeking to leave, said it had been stopped in a nearby town currently under Russian control.

The team “is being held in the town of Mangush, 20km west of Mariupol,” ICRC spokeswoman Caitlin Kelly told AFP in an email.

The team was stopped on Monday while carrying out humanitarian efforts to help lead a safe passage corridor for civilians,” she said.

Asked who was holding the team, she said “police”, without providing further details.

Red Cross staff walk next to damaged buildings and fallen branches as the humanitarian organisation delivers food and first aid to residents in Irpin, Ukraine.
Red Cross staff walk next to damaged buildings and fallen branches as the humanitarian organisation delivers food and first aid to residents in Irpin, Ukraine. Photograph: ICRC/Reuters

“The ICRC has been in direct contact with our colleagues and is speaking with the parties on all sides to bring clarity to the situation and allow them to resume their humanitarian work,” Kelly said.

Mariupol has been under siege from Russian forces for over a month, leaving the population to fend for themselves in conditions which have been denounced by the international community.

Previous attempts to evacuate residents have collapsed, though some have made the dangerous dash to freedom alone from the city, which housed approximately half a million people before the war began.

Mariupol’s mayor said that 90% of the city had been destroyed, and around 130,000 people remained trapped.

Updated

'If we had already got what we needed we could have saved thousands' Zelenskiy says of military aid

In Zelenskiy’s signature late-night national address he addressed Russian soldiers and military officers.

“Nowadays people are not executed,” Zelenskiy began. “But all skabeevas, evening loudmouths, frontline liars and their bosses in Moscow should remember: the end of your life will be behind bars. At best.”

“It is now 2022. And we have much more tools than those who prosecuted the Nazis after World War II.”

The Ukrainian president also addressed western leaders, criticising what he described as delayed action against Russia.

I would also like to note the reaction of the leaders of the democratic world to what they saw in Bucha. The sanctions response to Russia’s massacre of civilians must finally be powerful.

But was it really necessary to wait for this to reject doubts and indecision?

Did hundreds of our people really have to die in agony for some European leaders to finally understand that the Russian state deserves the most severe pressure?”

Zelenskiy again called for more military aid for Ukraine.

If we had already got what we needed - all these planes, tanks, artillery, anti-missile and anti-ship weapons, we could have saved thousands of people. I do not blame you - I blame only the Russian military. But you could have helped.

I will continue to say this to the face of all those on whom the decision on weapons for Ukraine depends.”

Some more images from the recently liberated town of Bucha have emerged showing destroyed Russian tanks littering the streets in the outskirts of Kyiv as Ukrainian servicemen sift through the debris of streets destroyed by shelling.

A shallow grave sen next to a the church of Bucha, Ukraine.
A shallow grave seen next to a the church of Bucha, Ukraine. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Ukrainian seen shortly after regaining control of the town.
Ukrainian servicemen seen shortly after regaining control of the town. Photograph: Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images
Destroyed Russian tanks litter the streets in Bucha, in the outskirts of Kyiv.
Destroyed Russian tanks litter the streets in Bucha, in the outskirts of Kyiv. Photograph: President Of Ukraine/ZUMA Press Wire Service/REX/Shutterstock

'Every Russian will learn the truth' Zelenskiy vows

Ukraine’s president Zelenskiy has spoken of the death and destruction in the recently liberated towns of Stoyanka, Irpin, Bucha of which he visited on Monday.

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.

The cities are simply ruined. Burnt military equipment on the roads, destroyed cars. It is especially hard to look at the traces of bullets on cars with the inscription ‘children’.”

Zelenskiy added authorities have begun an investigation into possible war crimes, adding that there is information to suggest about more than three hundred people were killed and tortured in Bucha alone.

“It is likely that the list of victims will be much larger when the whole city is checked. And this is only one city,” he said. “There is already information that the number of victims of the occupiers may be even higher in Borodyanka and some other liberated cities.”

In many villages of 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. The occupiers will definitely bear responsibility for this.”

Zelenskiy said Ukraine 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.

All 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...

The time will come when every Russian will learn the whole truth about who of their fellow citizens killed. Who gave orders. Who turned a blind eye to the murders. We will establish all this. And make it globally known.”

Bodies of 5 civilians, including mayor, found half buried with hands tied in Motyzhyn, officials say

The bodies of five civilians including those of the mayor, her husband and son, were found with their hands tied in the village of Motyzhyn, 45km west of Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities have said.

Police showed journalists from Agence France-Presse four bodies, including that of the mayor, half buried in a grave in a pine forest bordering her house in Motyzhyn.

A fifth body was found in a well in the garden.

The dead, including two men not part of the mayor’s family, reportedly had their hands tied behind their backs.

Separately, a Reuters reporter said they saw the bodies in a forest near a farm, which had been all but destroyed, just outside the village of Motyzhyn. Nearby a burnt-out tractor could be seen and one of those buried in the sand had his head taped.

The reporter also saw another body of a man in a well near to the burnt-out farm, where black scorch marks climbed up its few remaining walls. He appeared to have been tied up.

Local residents carry the body of a civilian who according to residents was killed by Russian soldiers in the village of Motyzhyn.
Local residents carry the body of a civilian who according to residents was killed by Russian soldiers in the village of Motyzhyn. Photograph: Gleb Garanich/Reuters

The mayor, Olga Sukhenko aged 50, her husband and their son, were abducted by Russian troops on 24 March, police said.

Residents said the mayor and her husband had refused to collaborate with the invading Russian forces.

Anton Herashchenko, an advisor to Ukraine interior ministry, wrote in a Telegram post:

There have been Russian occupiers here. They tortured and murdered the whole family of the village head.”

Herashchenko named those killed as Olga Sukhenko, her husband Igor Sukhenko and their 25-year old son, Oleksandr.

“The occupiers suspected they were collaborating with our military, giving us locations of where to target our artillery. These scum tortured, slaughtered and killed the whole family. They will be responsible for this.”

On 11 March, the mayor of Melitopol in southern Ukraine was abducted by Russian troops but released after a few days.

Updated

The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said it is “very clear” that war crimes have been committed by Russian military forces against civilians in Ukraine.

Speaking alongside the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, in Warsaw, she said the west must not lift sanctions against Russia until all its troops have left Ukraine and Vladimir Putin is unable to mount such an offensive again.

Watch Truss’ remarks in the video below.

Ukraine is a full-fledged part of Europe and deserves to be at the centre of an effective European security system, the head of the office of the president has said.

Andriy Yermak said a “very big historical mistake” was made when “specific Allied countries and specific leaders started a game with Russia” 14 years ago at the Nato summit in Bucharest, according to comments published on the website of Ukraine’s presidential office.

“Then it was possible to make a historic decision that could have prevented this heinous war, but it did not happen,” he said.

Yermak said Ukraine, which “has been directly holding back one of the world’s largest armies for more than a month”, could strengthen any alliance.

“But we need it today – not tomorrow. There is no time. Otherwise we will build a new system. Today we are not just knocking on the door. Today we simply demand, we deserve it – to be at the centre of the security system of our region, Europe,” said the head of the President’s Office.

“I believe that there is no adequate person who is not convinced that Ukraine is part of Europe, a democratic world, and today is actually a fortress, which protects not only itself but all the values of the democratic world,” said Yermak.

Yermak noted that Ukraine will never consider any compromises concerning independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty.

“It is unacceptable for us. And there is a position of the state that today Ukraine must return to internationally recognised borders,” he said.

Updated

Mounting evidence suggests that torture and rape are being used by Russian soldiers, Bethan McKernan reported for the Guardian.

On Sunday, a picture taken by the photographer Mikhail Palinchak, showing the bodies of one man and three women piled under a blanket, sent shockwaves across the internet. In it, the women were naked and their bodies had been partially burned, the photographer said.

Rape and sexual assault are war crimes and are in violation of international humanitarian law, and Ukraine’s prosecutor general and the international criminal court have said they will open investigations into reported sexual violence.

“Rape is an underreported crime and stigmatised issue even in peaceful times. I am worried that what we learn about is just going to be the tip of the iceberg,” said Kateryna Cherepakha, the president of La Strada Ukraine, a charity that supports survivors of trafficking, domestic violence and sexual assault.

Read the rest of the Guardian’s coverage here.

Updated

Zelenskiy to address United Nations security council

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he will address the United Nations security council on Tuesday, after saying it is in Kyiv’s interest to have the most open investigation into the killing of civilians in Ukraine.

Speaking on Monday, he said that in Bucha, where mass graves and bodies were found after Ukraine took the town back from Russian forces, at least 300 civilians have been killed, and he expects that in Borodyanka and other towns the number of casualties may be even higher.

“I would like to emphasise that we are interested in the most complete, transparent investigation, the results of which will be known and explained to the entire international community,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Updated

Summary

It’s nearly 1am in Ukraine, here’s where things stand.

  • The United States will request Russia’s removal from the UN human rights council. During a visit to Romania, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, called for the international body to suspend Russia ideally some time this week.
  • Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said that the newest phase of Russia’s invasion could go on for months if not longer.
  • Ukraine has accused Russian forces of committing war crimes and a “massacre” in Bucha after the bodies of unarmed Ukrainian civilians and mass graves were found on Sunday. Bodies of civilians – many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture – were found on the streets after Ukrainian troops reclaimed the town just 30km north-west of the capital, Kyiv.
  • Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited Bucha, wearing body armour and surrounded by military personnel. Speaking on national television, the Ukrainian president said it had become harder for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia since Kyiv had become aware of the scale of alleged atrocities carried out by Russian troops.
  • Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said the town of Borodyanka would be the worst-hit by the Russian invasion in the Kyiv region. Speaking on national television, Venediktova said the number of victims in Borodyanka, around 23km west of Bucha, would be higher than anywhere else but did not provide further details.
  • The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said the evidence of civilian killings from the town of Bucha are just the “tip of the iceberg”. Speaking at a joint press conference with the UK foreign minister, Liz Truss, he said the “horrors of Bucha, Mariupol, and other places” demand “serious G7 and EU sanctions”.
  • Joe Biden called for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes and said he would seek more sanctions after reported atrocities in Ukraine. “You may remember I got criticised for calling Putin a war criminal,” Biden told reporters at the Fort McNair army post in Washington. “Well, the truth of the matter – we saw it happen in Bucha – he is a war criminal.” The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the bloc was urgently working on a new round of sanctions against Moscow.

Updated

Volodymyr Zelenskiy says that the number of civilian casualties in Borodyanka and other liberated Ukrainian towns may be much higher than that in Bucha, where war survivors are returning to burned homes and unrecognizable neighborhoods.

Earlier today the nation’s prosecutor general made similar claims.

Updated

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s chief executive, says that the US bank could lose up to $1bn from its exposure to Russia, Kalyeena Makortoff, the Guardian’s banking correspondent, reports. Dimon also called for the Biden administration to take a stronger stance against the “grave new geopolitical realities” emerging after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying it was up to democratic nations to take a stand “against all forms of evil”.

Last month JP Morgan announced that it would be tamping down its Russian operations. The bank’s recent letter to investors makes Dimon one of the most high-profile American businesspeople to speak on the conflict.

“America must be ready for the possibility of an extended war in Ukraine with unpredictable outcomes. We should prepare for the worst and hope for the best. We must look at this as a wake-up call,” the letter urged.

“We need to make this a permanent, long-lasting stand for democratic ideals and against all forms of evil.”

Read the rest of my UK colleague’s in-depth coverage here.

Updated

The United States will request Russia’s removal from the UN human rights council, Reuters reports. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, called for the international body to suspend Russia ideally some time this week.

“Russia’s participation on the Human Rights Council is a farce,” said Thomas-Greenfield. “And it is wrong, which is why we believe it is time the UN General Assembly vote to remove them.

“My message to those 140 countries who have courageously stood together is: the images out of Bucha and devastation across Ukraine require us to now match our words with action,” she continued.

Read the rest of Reuters’ coverage here.

Updated

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser told said that the newest phase of Russia’s invasion could go on for months if not longer.

Russia is likely to send thousands of troops to the Eastern regions of Ukraine, according to Reuters.

It’s just after 11pm in Ukraine. I’m Abené Clayton and I’ll be taking over the blog from the US west coast. So far today:

  • Ukraine has accused Russian forces of committing war crimes and a “massacre” in Bucha after the bodies of unarmed Ukrainian civilians and mass graves were found on Sunday. Bodies of civilians – many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture – were found on the streets after Ukrainian troops reclaimed the town just 30km north-west of the capital, Kyiv.
  • Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited Bucha, wearing body armour and surrounded by military personnel. Speaking on national television, the Ukrainian president said it had become harder for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia since Kyiv had become aware of the scale of alleged atrocities carried out by Russian troops.
  • Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said the town of Borodyanka would be the worst-hit by the Russian invasion in the Kyiv region. Speaking on national television, Venediktova said the number of victims in Borodyanka, about 23km west of Bucha, would be higher than anywhere else, but did not provide further details.
  • The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said the evidence of civilian killings from the town of Bucha were just the “tip of the iceberg”. Speaking at a joint press conference with the UK foreign minister, Liz Truss, he said the “horrors of Bucha, Mariupol, and other places” demand “serious G7 and EU sanctions”.
  • Joe Biden called for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes and said he would seek more sanctions after reported atrocities in Ukraine. “You may remember I got criticised for calling Putin a war criminal,” Biden told reporters at the Fort McNair army post in Washington. “Well, the truth of the matter – we saw it happen in Bucha – he is a war criminal.” The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the bloc was urgently working on a new round of sanctions against Moscow.

Updated

Three hundred and fifty-five dogs died in animal shelters in the Kyiv Oblast during the Russian invasion, reported the Kyiv Independent.

From the Kyiv Independent:

355 dogs die in animal shelters in Borodyanka in Kyiv Oblast during Russian occupation. Food and water couldn’t be brought to the shelters.

Only 150 dogs survived the occupation, according to animal rights organization UAnimals.

Updated

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, told reporters: “We had already concluded that Russia committed war crimes in Ukraine and the information from Bucha appears to show further evidence of war crimes.

“And as the president said, we will work with the world to ensure there is full accountability for these crimes. We are also working intensively with our European allies on further sanctions to raise the pressure and raise the cost on Putin and on Russia.”

Sullivan outlined four main sources to build the case for war crimes: information gathered by the US and its allies including intelligence; what the Ukrainians do on the ground to develop the case and document the forensics; international organisations including the UN; global independent media’s work producing images, interviews and documentation.

This package can withstand “the assault on the truth” that is sure to come from Russia, Sullivan said.

He noted that the US has previously worked with the international criminal court despite not being a signatory “but there are a number of reasons why one might consider alternative venues as well”. Any decision about the form of a war crimes trial would not be made in Washington, Sullivan added, but “would be made in consultation with allies”.

Asked why Biden declined to use the term genocide, Sullivan said: “We have seen atrocities, we have seen war crimes. We have not seen a level of systemic depravation of life” that constitutes genocide.

Updated

The US will announce new sanctions against Russia this week, reports Reuters.

Today, White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said that the US will bring a new round of sanctions against Russia as its invasion of Ukraine continues.

Sullivan also said that the US will announce additional military assistance to Ukraine in the coming days.

Updated

Russia is likely to deploy thousands of soldiers to eastern Ukraine, reports Reuters.

Russia is ramping up its campaign against eastern Ukraine, with probable plans to “deploy tens of thousands of soldiers” to that region, the White House said on Monday, as it works will allies to unload fresh sanctions against Moscow.

Speaking to reporters, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan also said that images emerging from Bucha, a town recently recaptured by Ukrainian troops as Russian forces regroup, were tragic and shocking.

Updated

The White House said today that images of killings from Bucha, Ukraine, are “further evidence of war crimes” taking place during the Ukraine invasion.

During a briefing, White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said that the reports of killing in Bucha today were upsetting but “not surprising” given evidence of war crimes Russia has committed.

Sullivan said:

We had already concluded that Russia committed war crimes in Ukraine, and the information from Bucha appears to show further evidence of war crimes.

Updated

Russia has backed a new, self-proclaimed mayor of Mariupol, who is collaborating with Russian forces, reports Reuters.

The announcement came from Mariupol’s city council in an online post.

Mariupol is surrounded by Russian forces who have taken over parts of the city, but do not have full control, said Ukraine’s defense ministry.

The US state department said today that the US is concerned by reports of Trevor Reed’s deteriorating health, reported Reuters.

Reed, a former US marine who is jailed in Russia, recently ended his hunger strike, reported Russian news agencies today.

Reed is reportedly being treated in a prison medical facility, but his family told several news outlets that Reed is not getting proper medical care.

The state department called on Russian officials to either provide Reed with proper medical assistance or release him to the US.

Updated

The US is supporting a team of international prosecutors to collect evidence of atrocities in Ukraine, reports Reuters.

The United States, at the request of Ukraine, is supporting a multi-national team of international prosecutors to the region to help collect and analyze evidence of atrocities with a view toward pursuing accountability, the State Department said on Monday.

“We are tracking and documenting atrocities and sharing information with institutions working to hold responsible those accountable,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters.

German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier admitted today that economic cooperation with Russia was a mistake, reports NEXTA.

Specifically speaking about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that was dissolved when Russia invaded Ukraine, Steinmeier said:

I did not believe that Vladimir Putin would accept the complete economic, political and moral collapse of his country for the sake of his imperial madness.

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that Russian forces are still blocking an evacuation convoy being escorted by the International Committee of the Red Cross in the eastern town of Manhush, reported Reuters.

An ICRC spokesperson confirmed earlier today that one of its teams was stopped while trying to reach the besieged city of Mariupol today, and was being held by Russian forces.

Updated

Ukraine said today that Russia is preparing to launch an attack in eastern Ukraine to capture the city of Kharkiv and surround Ukraine’s eastern frontline, reports Reuters.

At a briefing today, Ukraine’s defense ministry spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzyanyk also said that Russia is currently attacking the cities of Rubizhne and Popasna in the eastern Luhansk region, while preparing an attack on the city of Severodonetsk and working to capture Mariupol.

Reuters was not able to verify Motuzyanyk’s claims and he did not provide any evidence during his briefing.

Motuzyanyk also noted that Russian forces have set up medical facilities to prepare for a potential increase in military casualties.

Moscow will respond to France’s decision to expel Russian diplomats, reports Reuters, citing Russia’s Interfax news agency.

France decided today to remove the Russian diplomatic staff “whose activities are against our interests”, said the French ministry of foreign affairs, following a similar move made by Germany today.

A total of 35 Russian diplomats will be expelled, reported AFP.

Updated

Summary

It is 9pm in Kyiv. Before I hand the live blog over to my US colleague, Gloria Oladipo, here’s a summary of today’s developments so far:

  • Ukraine has accused Russian forces of committing war crimes and a “massacre” in Bucha after the bodies of unarmed Ukrainian civilians and mass graves were found on Sunday. Bodies of civilians – many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture – were found on the streets after Ukrainian troops reclaimed the town just 30km north-west of the capital, Kyiv.
  • Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited Bucha today, wearing body armour and surrounded by military personnel. Speaking on national television, the Ukrainian president said it had become harder for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia since Kyiv had become aware of the scale of alleged atrocities carried out by Russian troops.
  • Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said the town of Borodyanka will be the worst-hit by the Russian invasion in the Kyiv region. Speaking on national television, Venediktova said the number of victims in Borodyanka, around 23km west of Bucha, would be higher than anywhere else, but did not provide further details.
  • The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said the evidence of civilian killings from the town of Bucha are just the “tip of the iceberg”. Speaking at a joint press conference with the UK foreign minister, Liz Truss, he said the “horrors of Bucha, Mariupol, and other places” demand “serious G7 and EU sanctions.
  • Joe Biden called for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes and said he would seek more sanctions after reported atrocities in Ukraine. “You may remember I got criticised for calling Putin a war criminal,” Biden told reporters at the Fort McNair army post in Washington. “Well, the truth of the matter – we saw it happen in Bucha – he is a war criminal.” The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the bloc was urgently working on a new round of sanctions against Moscow.
  • The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU was ready to send joint investigations teams to Ukraine to document the alleged Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity. She said she had spoken with Zelenskiy about the “dreadful murders” that were uncovered over the weekend.
  • The Kremlin said it categorically denied any accusations related to the murder of civilians in Bucha and said Ukrainian allegations on the matter should be treated with doubt. Russia’s foreign ministry said that footage of dead civilians in the town had been “ordered” by the United States as part of a plot to blame Russia. Russian state media dismissed the horrifying images and testimonies that emerged from Bucha as western-orchestrated “fakes” and “planned provocations”, claiming “Ukrainian Nazis” were responsible for the deaths of the civilians.
  • Russian forces are sending Ukrainian citizens to “filtration camps” before forcibly relocating them to Russia, according to the accounts of two women who said they were transported to Russian territory from the besieged city of Mariupol last month.
  • Buses meant for the rescue of civilians from Mariupol were not able to reach the besieged southern Ukrainian city, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said. A spokesperson from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said a team is being “held by police” in the town of Manhush, 20km west of Mariupol.
  • The US will ask the United Nations general assembly to suspend Russia from the human rights council, US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said. The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, also called for Russia to be expelled from the UN’s human rights council.

Updated

Bucha killings are just the 'tip of the iceberg', Kuleba says

The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said the evidence of civilian killings from the town of Bucha are just the “tip of the iceberg”.

Speaking at a joint press conference with the UK foreign minister, Liz Truss, he said the “horrors of Bucha, Mariupol, and other places” demand “serious G7 and EU sanctions.

Kuleba called for the “most severe” sanctions to be imposed against Russia, and demanded Russia’s expulsion from the UN Human Rights Council.

He said:

The horrors that we’ve seen in Bucha are just the tip of the iceberg of all the crimes (that) have been committed by the Russian Army.

Half measures are not enough any more. I demand most severe sanctions this week, this is the plea of the victims of the rapes and killings. If you have doubts about sanctions go to Bucha first.

Addressing foreign ministers who will attend Nato, EU and G7 meetings this week, Kuleba said:

If you have doubts, reluctance, or arguments about the need to keep doing business with Russia, go to Bucha first and then talk to me.

Updated

Red Cross team 'being held in town west of Mariupol'

A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is being “held by police” in the Ukrainian town of Manhush, 20km west of the besieged city of Mariupol, a spokesperson said.

A statement by the ICRC said:

The team was stopped on Monday while carrying out humanitarian efforts to help lead a safe passage corridor for civilians.

The ICRC has been in direct contact with our colleagues and is speaking with the parties on all sides to bring clarity to the situation and allow them to resume their humanitarian work.

Responding to US President Joe Biden’s earlier comments accusing Vladimir Putin of war crimes amid outcry over civilian killings in Bucha, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said some in the West have issues with their conscience.

The West’s refusal to talk with Russia will lead to nothing good, Lavrov said, adding that Russia is open to an “honest conversation” with western countries.

He also said Russia will hold a news conference later today in New York to address allegations about its role in the situation in Bucha.

Joe Biden has called for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes and said he would seek more sanctions after reported atrocities in Ukraine, as a global outcry mounted over civilian killings in the town of Bucha.

Biden described the Russian president as “brutal” and added “what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous”.

Situation in Borodyanka is worse than Bucha, prosecutor general says

Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said the town of Borodyanka will be the worst-hit by the Russian invasion in the Kyiv region.

Speaking on national television, Venediktova said the number of victims in Borodyanka, around 23km west of Bucha, would be higher than anywhere else, but did not provide further details.

She said:

We can speak of Kyiv region because yesterday we got access to these territories and are currently working in Irpin, Bucha, Vorzel.

In fact, the worst situation with civilian victims is in Borodyanka. I think we will speak of Borodyanka separately. .

From Kyiv Independent’s Oleksiy Sorokin:

Here are some of the most powerful images from President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to Bucha today.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy looks on as he is surrounded by Ukrainian servicemen in Bucha, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, April 4, 2022.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy looks on as he is surrounded by Ukrainian servicemen in Bucha, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, April 4, 2022. Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters
Zelenskiy speaks to a local resident in the town of Bucha, outside of Kyiv, Ukraine April 4, 2022.
President Zelenskiy speaks to a local resident in the town of Bucha, outside of Kyiv, Ukraine April 4, 2022. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters
President Zelenskiy shakes hands with a local resident in Bucha.
President Zelenskiy shakes hands with a local resident in Bucha. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters
President Zelenskiy speaks to the media, in Bucha, outside Kyiv
President Zelenskiy speaks to the media, in Bucha, outside Kyiv Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

Liz Truss said she will be working with allies to ban Russian ships from western ports, crack down on Russian banks, and agree to “a clear timetable to eliminate our imports of Russian oil, gas and coal”.

She told reporters:

The fact is that being rough is the only approach that will work. Putin has escalated this war.

This approach is vital to ensuring he loses in Ukraine, and that we see a full withdrawal of Russian troops.

Truss continued:

We need to see Putin withdraw his troops. We need to see Ukraine’s full territorial integrity restored. We need to see Russia’s ability for further aggression stopped.

We need a plan to rebuild Ukraine. We need justice done.

Updated

The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has been speaking at a joint news conference with her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, in Warsaw, where she said Russia “has no place” on the UN Human Rights Council.

Putin must lose in Ukraine, she said.

That means more weapons and more sanctions.

G7 and Nato foreign ministers will meet later this week and they will “need to announce a tough new wave of sanctions”, Truss added.

The reality is that money is still flowing from the West into Putin’s war machine. And that has to stop in Brussels.

Updated

The US is not in a position to independently confirm Ukrainian accounts of atrocities by Russian forces against civilians in the town of Bucha, but has “no reason” to dispute the accounts either, a senior US defence official said.

The official said, speaking on condition of anonymity, said:

We’re seeing the same imagery that you are. We have no reason whatsoever to refute the Ukrainian claims about these atrocities – clearly, deeply, deeply troubling.

They added:

The Pentagon can’t independently and single handedly confirm that, but we’re also not in any position to refute those claims.

Updated

Summary

It is 7pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand now:

  • Ukraine has accused Russian forces of committing war crimes and a “massacre” in Bucha after the bodies of unarmed Ukrainian civilians and mass graves were found on Sunday. Bodies of civilians – many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture – were found on the streets after Ukrainian troops reclaimed the town just 30km north-west of the capital, Kyiv.
  • Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited Bucha today, wearing body armour and surrounded by military personnel. Speaking on national television, the Ukrainian president said it had become harder for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia since Kyiv had become aware of the scale of alleged atrocities carried out by Russian troops.
  • Joe Biden called for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes and said he would seek more sanctions after reported atrocities in Ukraine. Speaking to reporters today, the US president noted the importance of gathering evidence of war crimes and was asked if genocide had been committed. He replied: “No, I think it’s a war crime.” EU leaders denounced “massacres”, “atrocities” and “possible genocide”. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the bloc was urgently working on a new round of sanctions against Moscow.
  • The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU was ready to send joint investigations teams to Ukraine to document the alleged Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity. She said she had spoken with Zelenskiy about the “dreadful murders” that were uncovered over the weekend.
  • The Kremlin said it categorically denied any accusations related to the murder of civilians in Bucha and said Ukrainian allegations on the matter should be treated with doubt. Russia’s foreign ministry said that footage of dead civilians in the town had been “ordered” by the United States as part of a plot to blame Russia. Russian state media dismissed the horrifying images and testimonies that emerged from Bucha as western-orchestrated “fakes” and “planned provocations”, claiming “Ukrainian Nazis” were responsible for the deaths of the civilians.
  • Russian forces are sending Ukrainian citizens to “filtration camps” before forcibly relocating them to Russia, according to the accounts of two women who said they were transported to Russian territory from the besieged city of Mariupol last month.
  • Buses meant for the rescue of civilians from Mariupol were not able to reach the besieged southern Ukrainian city, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said. She accused Russian forces of blocking the International Red Cross’s (ICRC) evacuation efforts and said 100 Turkish citizens were still trapped in Mariupol.
  • The US will ask the United Nations general assembly to suspend Russia from the human rights council, US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said. The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, also called for Russia to be expelled from the UN’s human rights council.

Hello from London, I’m Léonie Chao-Fong and I’ll continue to bring you all the latest news from the war in Ukraine. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.

Updated

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy surrounded by Ukrainian servicemen in Bucha, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, April 4, 2022.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy with Ukrainian forces in Bucha, outside Kyiv, on Monday. Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

Updated

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said the EU is ready to send joint investigations teams to Ukraine to document alleged Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In a statement, Von der Leyen said she had spoken with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on the “dreadful murders” that were uncovered over the weekend.

She said:

I conveyed to him my condolences and assured him of the European Commission’s full support in these terrible times. The harrowing images cannot and will not be left unanswered. The perpetrators of these heinous crimes must not go unpunished.

A global response is necessary, she continued.

There are ongoing talks between Eurojust and the international criminal court to join forces and for the court to be part of the joint investigation team.

Such a coordinated approach from the Ukrainian authorities, the EU, its member states and agencies, and the international criminal court will allow for the evidence to be collected, analysed and processed in the most complete and effective way possible.

Updated

The governor of Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region has said that no Russian forces remain in the region. The region is to the west of Kyiv Oblast, and borders Belarus to the north.

Updated

Biden calls Putin a 'war criminal' and says he will call for a trial

The US president, Joe Biden, called the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, a war criminal on Monday, and said he would call for a war crimes trial.

“You saw what happened in Bucha,” Biden said. He added that Putin “is a war criminal”.

Biden also said he would seek more sanctions after reported atrocities in Ukraine, but his comments to reporters did not go as far as calling the actions genocide.

“We have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue the fight. And we have to gather all the detail so this can be an actual – have a war crimes trial,” Biden said, according to remarks posted by Associated Press.

Biden lashed out at Putin as “brutal”.

“What’s happening in Bucha is outrageous and everyone sees it,” Biden added.

In a separate move, a senior US defence official informed Reuters that the US believed Russia had repositioned about two-thirds of its forces from around Kyiv, with many of them consolidating in Belarus. They anticipate they will be redirected to the east of Ukraine, but that is not yet confirmed.

Updated

Germany’s economics minister Robert Habeck looks to have announced that Germany’s energy regulator is to take control of Gazprom Germania in the short term. Reuters reports it is being portrayed as a temporary measure to manage the affairs of the company and secure energy supplies.

On Friday Gazprom had said that it was quitting its business in Germany. Earlier today Bloomberg reported that the German government was offering state-backed loans for private companies willing to take on parts of the business.

Updated

The UK foreign secretary Liz Truss has called for Russia to be expelled from the UN’s human rights council.

Western outrage has intensified over claims of civilian killings by Russian troops in Ukraine, with EU leaders denouncing “massacres”, “atrocities” and “possible genocide” as the Kremlin flatly rejected all responsibility.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the bloc was urgently working on a new round of sanctions against Moscow, adding: “Russian authorities are responsible for these atrocities, committed while they had effective control of the area.”

Amid an international outcry following the weekend discovery of a mass grave and corpses with their hands bound in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv, Borrell said the EU stood in solidarity with Ukraine during “sombre hours for the whole world”.

Read more of Jon Henley’s report here: EU leaders denounce ‘possible genocide’ in Ukraine as Russia issues denials

Ireland’s government is pushing for tougher international sanctions against Russia, as the Irish premier condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the atrocities and civilian deaths in Ukraine.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin said that “nothing can be ruled out” in its response to the “appalling and barbaric” crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine.

He said that every “conceivable” pressure has to be put on Russia to stop the war and the attack on humanity. “I would rule nothing out in terms of how we respond, and I think Europe is repulsed by this,” PA Media quotes Martin saying in Dublin earlier.

“We have seen this before, we didn’t think we would see it again.

“There is no justification for this war and without question, from my perspective, the Russian Federation and Putin has put himself beyond the pale.”

“We would support further sanctions given the appalling and barbaric crimes committed by Russian Federation troops in Ukraine, particularly in Kyiv and Bucha and other towns, where we see innocent civilians murdered, with their hands tied behind their backs,” Martin added.

The Irish foreign affairs minister, Simon Coveney, said he spoke to his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, about the atrocities uncovered in recent days.

Coveney said he believed a war crime had been committed in Bucha and called for the incident to be investigated by the international criminal court.

“It was a very sobering conversation, with pretty shocking accounts of brutality and what I think can only be described as war crimes.”

The Russian ambassador to Ireland, Yuriy Filatov, has been invited to attend the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s address to the joint Houses of the Oireachtas this week. Coveney said it was for Filatov to decide whether to attend.

Updated

Ukraine deputy PM accuses Russian forces of blocking Red Cross efforts to reach Mariupol

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk has told national television that buses meant for the rescue of civilians from Mariupol were not able to reach the besieged southern Ukrainian city.

She accused Russian forces of blocking the International Red Cross’s (ICRC) evacuation efforts and said 100 Turkish citizens were still trapped in Mariupol. Reuters notes that repeated efforts to organise mass evacuations of the city have failed.

The ICRC had said earlier that it had not been able to reach Mariupol.

Updated

Lithuania’s minister of foreign affairs, Gabrielius Landsbergis, has just announced that the country is to expel the Russian ambassador.

Lithuania’s ambassador to Ukraine is to return to Kyiv.

Yesterday the ministry tweeted that Lithuania was “appalled by the scenes of horrific atrocities in Bucha and other towns in Ukraine”.

Updated

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited the town of Bucha, 35 miles north-west of the capital, Kyiv, today, after images showing civilian bodies strewn in the streets sparked international condemnation.

Wearing body armour and surrounded by military personnel, Zelenskiy spoke on national television where he said it was “very difficult” for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia following the atrocities carried out by Russian forces in Bucha.

Zelenskiy said:

These are war crimes and will be recognised by the world as genocide.

He warned that the “longer the Russian Federation drags out the meeting process”, the worse the situation becomes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visits the town of Bucha, after it was liberated from Russian Army, on April 04, 2022.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy visiting the town of Bucha on Monday. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

He added:

We know of thousands of people killed and tortured, with severed limbs, raped women and murdered children.

Zelenskiy (C) walks in the town of Bucha, northwest of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, on April 4, 2022.
Zelenskiy walking in Bucha. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Roman Abramovich’s $600m (£458m) superyacht Solaris has left a port in Turkey after the London-based company that operates the terminal which had been harbouring the oligarch’s yacht was pressed to act.

Solaris, which is 140 metres long and has a helipad and swimming pool, left Bodrum cruise port on Monday. It is now at anchor off Yalikavak beach in south-eastern Turkey, according to the shipping data service Marine Traffic.

Pressure had been building for Global Ports Holding (GPH), the Mayfair-headquartered company that runs Bodrum cruise port, to refuse services to Solaris.

Legal experts had said the London-listed company was taking “a very big risk” by allowing a superyacht owned by an individual under sanctions to use one of its ports. The Bodrum port is one of 22 terminals run by the firm.

Solaris, a superyacht linked to Roman Abramovich, is pictured in Bodrum, south-west Turkey.
Solaris, a superyacht linked to Roman Abramovich, is pictured in Bodrum, south-west Turkey. Photograph: Yoruk Isik/Reuters

Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea football club, is one of several Russian billionaires hit by UK sanctions last month as part of the government’s efforts to put pressure on Vladimir Putin to end the invasion of Ukraine. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, described the individuals under sanctions as having “the blood of the Ukrainian people on their hands”.

Updated

Russian actions in Ukraine make negotiations harder, Zelenskiy says

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said it had become harder for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia since Ukraine had become aware of the scale of alleged atrocities carried out by Russian troops.

Reuters has quoted the Ukrainian leader as saying:

These are war crimes and will be recognised by the world as genocide.

A resident of the Ukrainian town of Bucha says she found her husband dead and mutilated in a basement, after nearly two weeks of dread and uncertainty.

Russian state media have dismissed the horrifying images and testimonies that emerged from Bucha as western-orchestrated “fakes” and “planned provocations”, claiming “Ukrainian Nazis” are responsible for the deaths of the civilians.

“A flagrantly brutal provocation by Ukrainian Nazis,” said Olga Skabeeva, host of the widely watched state media talk show 60 Minutes on Monday.

“Zelenskiy and the so-called civilized west is attempting to create a hybrid, fake version of Srebrenica.”

Vladimir Solovyov, the popular state presenter who is under western sanctions said on his Sunday night talkshow that the killings were planned by Britain.

“The war against Russia entered a new phase today. Very soon they’ll accuse us of genocide. To all appearances this whole provocation was plotted by the British,” Solovyov said.

The Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday that the “video materials mostly can’t be trusted, because [of] signs of video manipulation and some fakes”.

Some Russian officials as well as state-linked Telegram channels said the killed civilians in Bucha were actors.

“The video with the bodies is puzzling: here, at the 12th second, the ‘corpse’ on the right moves his hand. At the 30th second in the rearview mirror, the ‘corpse’ sits down. The bodies in the video appear to have been deliberately laid out to create a more dramatic image,” said the government-run Stop Fake Telegram channel.

The official Twitter account of the Russian defence ministry retweeted Stop Fake’s Telegram post.

Russian state media also accused the western press, including the Guardian, of uncritically reporting on the events.

“The Guardian says Russia troops brutalised civilians in Bucha while regrouping, using kids as human shields – without proof, taking word at face value,” said an NTV news presenter on Sunday evening.

While Russian state media categorically denied any links to the atrocities, leading news agency RIA on Monday published an op-ed titled “What Russia should do with Ukraine” by a pro-Kremlin political commentator in which the author called for the “denazification” and “re-education” of a large part of Ukrainian society.

“The name Ukraine can seemingly not be retained as the title of any fully denazified state formation on the territory liberated from the Nazi regime,” the pundit Timofei Sergeitsev wrote.

Updated

Pavlo Bakhura writes for us today on the situation in Izyum, south-east of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, where his father lives:

“Yesterday morning started with hell,” my father, Andriy, told me when he called from Izyum last week. “There were as many bombs as there have been in the past month. The town centre was heavily bombed. It is shelled every minute. Even now when I tried to call you it’s going on.”

Like all the residents of the occupied city, my father, 57, has survived for three weeks without electricity, heating or running water. He spends 15 minutes a day trying to “catch” the unstable mobile phone connection to call me.

To survive he takes water from the neighbours’ well, lives off preserves and dried food supplies and usually cooks on an open fire. He abandoned his bed at the start of the war and now sleeps in a corner of the house where he feels more protected by walls. “I’m already used to the cold. I sleep under two duvets and take the cat with me,” he told me. At that time it was snowing there.

“You don’t hear when the bomb is coming. You just hear it half a second before it lands,” he said. Half the neighbours’ house has been destroyed. When the artillery starts, our house creaks and trembles. He hides our dog in the cellar.

Read more of Pavlo Bakhura’s piece here: No safe way out of Izyum – ‘I can’t imagine how it will end’

Ukrainian human rights activist Oleksandra Matviichuk has shared a video reportedly showing a soldier visiting his parents in the village of Nova Basan after it was retaken by Ukrainian forces.

Katerina Sergatskova, editor in chief of the Kyiv-based news website Zaborona Media, shared the video on Twitter, writing:

This is what Ukrainians fight for. For their families, for their home. For love and freedom.

Note: the Guardian has not been able to verify this video.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, has said all bodies need to be exhumed and identified in the Ukrainian town of Bucha to ensure that possible war crimes can be investigated, AFP reports.

In a statement, Bachelet said she was “horrified” by images of civilians lying dead on the streets in the Ukrainian town of Bucha:

Reports emerging from this and other areas raise serious and disturbing questions about possible war crimes, grave breaches of international humanitarian law and serious violations of international human rights law.

The UN rights office said yesterday that its staff on the ground had not yet been able to verify the numbers or details reported by Ukrainian officials.

Bachelet said:

It is essential that all bodies are exhumed and identified so that victims’ families can be informed, and the exact causes of death established.

She said all measures should be taken to preserve evidence.

It is vital that all efforts are made to ensure there are independent and effective investigations into what happened in Bucha to ensure truth, justice and accountability, as well as reparations and remedy for victims and their families.

Updated

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said it has not been able to reach the besieged city of Mariupol today to evacuate civilians, citing security conditions.

The ICRC spokesperson Jason Straziuso told Reuters:

Due to security conditions, our team has not been able to reach Mariupol today.

Previous attempts by the Red Cross to reach the devastated Ukrainian city over recent days and weeks have not succeeded.

Updated

US pushes to suspend Russia from UN Human Rights Council

The US will ask the United Nations general assembly to suspend Russia from the human rights council, US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, has said.

A two-third majority vote by the 193-member assembly in New York can suspend a state from the council for persistently committing gross and systematic violations of human rights during its membership, Reuters reports.

Speaking in Bucharest on Monday, Thomas-Greenfield said:

Russia’s participation on the human rights council is a farce. And it is wrong, which is why we believe it is time the UN general assembly vote to remove them.

She continued:

My message to those 140 countries who have courageously stood together is: the images out of Bucha and devastation across Ukraine require us to now match our words with action.

From CNN’s Bianna Golodryga:

Hello everyone. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here with you as we unpack all the latest developments on the war in Ukraine. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.

Updated

A Ukrainian serviceman walks near the wreckage of the Antonov An-225 at the military airport in Hostomel on the outskirts of Kyiv.
A Ukrainian serviceman walks near the wreckage of the Antonov An-225 at the military airport in Hostomel on the outskirts of Kyiv. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Updated

Russian troops no longer occupy any settlements in Sumy region – governor

A quick snap from Reuters here that the governor of Ukraine’s Sumy region – which is to the north and east of Kyiv and Chernihiv – says Russian troops no longer occupy any settlements in the region.

UK families who have volunteered to take in refugees from Ukraine are having to deal with the “heartbreaking” task of telling them they cannot come yet because visas have not yet been granted.

Gary Gray, who runs the volunteer organisation scothosts.org, said so far only a “paltry” 270 visas had been granted to allow people from Ukraine to travel to Scotland.

And with thousands of Scots having offered to open their home to those fleeing the war, he said there was “frustration” at the length of time it was taking for the paperwork to be carried out.

His comments come after Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon complained on Friday that the “process of translating applications into visas is unacceptably slow”.

PA Media quotes Gray telling BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme:

We don’t think there is that many that have been able to come to Scotland. These families are fleeing a warzone. What I would use as an example is how Ireland are processing this, they are managing to process the people who come to Ireland in 12 hours. We are currently in a situation more than 12 days out there are people who have not had their visas approved and they are getting very little information.

Gray argued that by insisting people coming from Ukraine have a visa before entering the UK, the Home Office is “using the existing immigration route for an emergency situation”.

He added: “We feel that is not really appropriate for the situation we are in. The hardest part of this is telling the families in Ukraine ‘I’m sorry, the visa still hasn’t been approved’. That’s the hardest part, it is heart-breaking having to tell these families, it just hasn’t been approved because of bureaucracy.”

Earlier today a UK government minister told Sky News he thought criticism of the speed with which the UK was processing refugees from Ukraine was “a bit harsh.”

UNHCR say that over four million people have been displaced abroad after fleeing Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February. The UK government claims to have issued about 25,000 visas.

Updated

Marko Djurica reports for Reuters from Motyzhyn that the head of the village, her husband and son were killed and buried in a shallow grave. An adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry showed reporters their partially covered bodies in sand. The village is in the Kyiv Oblast, about 55km away from the capital city.

“There have been Russian occupiers here. They tortured and murdered the whole family of the village head,” said Anton Herashchenko, naming those killed as Olha Sukhenko, her husband Ihor Sukhenko and their son, Oleksandr.

“The occupiers suspected they were collaborating with our military, giving us locations of where to target our artillery. These scum tortured, slaughtered and killed the whole family. They will be responsible for this.”

A Reuters reporter saw the bodies in a forest near a farm, which had been all but destroyed, just outside the village. Nearby a burnt out tractor could be seen.

Reuters could not independently verify who killed the family.

Russia has issued strenuous denials that its troops targeted civilians in Ukraine, and has accused Ukraine and the West of setting up fake images to discredit Russia, without producing any evidence to back this up.

A woman cries while waiting along with others for distribution of food products in the village of Motyzhyn, Ukraine, which was until recently under the control of the Russian military,.
A woman cries while waiting along with others for distribution of food products in the village of Motyzhyn. Photograph: Vadim Ghirdă/AP

Updated

Today so far …

  • Ukraine has accused Russian forces of committing war crimes and a “massacre” in Bucha, a town just 30km northwest of the capital Kyiv, after the bodies of unarmed Ukrainian civilians and mass graves were found on Sunday. Bodies of civilians - many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture - were found on the streets after Ukrainian troops reclaimed the town.
  • Ukrainian prosecutors said they found 410 bodies in towns near Kyiv, and 140 bodies had been examined on Sunday. Satellite images from Bucha appear to show an approximately 45ft-long trench dug into the grounds of a church where a mass grave has been identified.
  • Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned Russian forces as “murderers”, “torturers” and “rapists” after the killings came to light, describing the Kremlin-ordered attack on his country as amounting to genocide . “How did they also become butchers? ... They killed deliberately and with pleasure,” he said in a national address late on Sunday. He vowed to investigate and prosecute all Russian “crimes” in Ukraine.
  • The Kremlin said it categorically denied any accusations related to the murder of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha and said Ukrainian allegations on the matter should be treated with doubt. Russia’s foreign ministry said that footage of dead civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha had been “ordered” by the United States as part of a plot to blame Russia.
  • Russia’s foreign ministry said it would reiterate its request for the UN Security Council to meet over what Moscow called the “criminal provocations by Ukrainian soldiers and radicals” in the town of Bucha. Britain’s mission to the United Nations, which holds the presidency of the 15-member council for April, had said the Council would hold a scheduled discussion on Ukraine on Tuesday, and not meet on Monday as requested by Russia.
  • Russia’s chief investigator ordered an official examination. Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Russian Investigative Committee, ordered that an inquiry be opened on the basis that Ukraine had spread “deliberately false information”.
  • Some Russian troops remained in the northern Ukrainian region of Chernihiv on Monday after pulling back from around Chernihiv city, the regional governor, Viacheslav Chaus, said.
  • Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, described the images coming out of Bucha in Ukraine as signs of a possible “genocide”.
  • Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has aimed some very strong words at the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, and German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, over economic sanctions. Calling the accusations over Bucha a “genocide”, he said of Macron “How many times have you negotiated with Putin and what have you achieved? We do not discuss, we do not negotiate with criminals.”
  • For his part, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, called on the radio in France for new sanctions in response to what has happened in Bucha.
  • The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, has posted a video in support of Ukraine, saying: “Putin will never break the spirit of Ukraine’s people or conquer their homeland. Ukraine will rise again and take her place among free and sovereign nations once more.” Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, is to visit Poland today.
  • Ukraine’s agriculture minister said on Monday he expects “quite a large harvest” this year and hopes Ukraine will be able to export grain, but warned that continuation of the war would mean higher prices for all countries.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has added his voice to those in Russia demanding an immediate discussion today at the UN Security Council of the images that have come out of Bucha in Ukraine. He has said that the UK must fulfil its responsibilities as chair of the security council and convene a meeting.

Reuters reports he also said that “provocations” like that in Bucha are a direct threat to international security, and that Ukraine had staged a “fake attack”.

Updated

The Kremlin said on Monday it categorically denied any accusations related to the murder of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha and said Ukrainian allegations on the matter should be treated with doubt.

Speaking to reporters on his regular daily conference call, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the facts and chronology of the events in Bucha did not support Ukraine’s version of events and urged international leaders not to rush to judgment.

Peskov produced no evidence to back up his claim, but said that Russian specialists have detected signs of various “fakes” and video edits in the material.

Peskov declined to comment on whether the images emerging from Bucha would affect peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv, which had been set to resume via video conference today.

Updated

Russia’s foreign ministry said it would reiterate its request for the UN security council to meet on Monday over what Moscow called the “criminal provocations by Ukrainian soldiers and radicals” in the town of Bucha near Kyiv.

Britain’s mission to the United Nations, which holds the presidency of the 15-member council for April, had said the council would hold a scheduled discussion on Ukraine on Tuesday, and not meet on Monday as requested by Russia.

Reuters reports foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel: “Today Russia will again demand that the UN security council convene in connection with the criminal provocations of Ukrainian servicemen and radicals in this city.”

Updated

Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has aimed some very strong words at the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, this morning, according to Agence France-Presse.

He said of the French president “How many times have you negotiated with Putin and what have you achieved? We do not discuss, we do not negotiate with criminals. Criminals have to be fought against. Nobody negotiated with Hitler. Would you negotiate with Hitler, with Stalin, with Pol Pot?”

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki attends a press conference at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister in Warsaw.
Mateusz Morawiecki attends a press conference in Warsaw. Photograph: Marcin Obara/EPA

Morawiecki called for investigation into Russian actions in Ukraine, and for further sanctions to be applied.

“These bloody massacres committed by Russians, by Russian soldiers, deserve to be called what they are. This is genocide and it must be judged,” Morawiecki told reporters.

“This is why we are proposing an international commission to investigate this crime of genocide.

Such a commission “is essential if we want to find out the truth on the extent of Russian fascist crimes”.

“Clear and determined sanctions are necessary. These sanctions are not working,” Morawiecki said.

He also had a message for the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, over economic sanctions, saying: “It is not the voices of German business leaders, of German billionaires who are probably stopping you from taking action, that should be listened to in Berlin today, but the voices of innocent women and children.”

Updated

Some Russian troops remain in the northern Ukrainian region of Chernihiv – governor

Some Russian troops remained in the northern Ukrainian region of Chernihiv on Monday after pulling back from around Chernihiv city, the regional governor, Viacheslav Chaus, said.

Reuters reminds us that Russia said last week it would sharply scale back military activity around Chernihiv and the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

Updated

The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, has posted a video in support of Ukraine, saying: “Putin will never break the spirit of Ukraine’s people or conquer their homeland. Ukraine will rise again and take her place among free and sovereign nations once more.”

In the clip, Johnson also says: “From the moment the Russian invasion began, and troops and tanks burst across their frontier, Ukrainians have defended their homeland with invincible courage and tenacity, and we in Britain are lost in admiration for their valour and patriotism. Our job is to do everything we can to support them. Britain will never waver from supporting our friends.”

Updated

The British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, will call for tougher action to tackle Russian aggression and to support Ukraine in peace talks when she visits Poland today, according to a statement from her office.

Reuters quotes her as saying: “Putin is yet to show he is serious about diplomacy. A tough approach from the UK and our allies is vital to strengthen Ukraine’s hand in negotiations.”

Yesterday in a statement she called on action to bring Russians to justice over accusations of war crimes in Ukraine, saying: “We will not rest until those responsible for atrocities, including military commanders and individuals in the Putin regime, have faced justice.”

Updated

Agence France-Presse are carrying some quotes from Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, in which he described the images coming out of Bucha in Ukraine as signs of a possible “genocide”.

“We will do everything to ensure that those who have perpetrated these war crimes do not go unpunished, and therefore appear before the courts ... to deal with these alleged cases of (crimes against) humanity, war crimes and why not say it too, genocide,” he said.

“Putin’s unjustified aggression has brought war back to the gates of the European Union,” he told an economic forum in Madrid.

Sánchez, is one of the first European Union leaders to label Russia’s actions in Ukraine a “genocide”.

Spain’s public prosecutor last month opened an inquiry into “serious violations of international humanitarian law” by Russian troops in Ukraine.

Updated

Russia’s chief investigator orders investigation into Ukraine 'provocation' over Bucha

Russia’s chief investigator on Monday ordered an official examination of what he called a Ukrainian “provocation” after Kyiv accused the Russian military of massacring civilians in the town of Bucha.

Reuters reports Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Russian Investigative Committee, ordered that an inquiry be opened on the basis that Ukraine had spread “deliberately false information” about Russian armed forces in Bucha, the committee said in a statement.

Bastrykin provided no evidence for his claims.

Updated

Here is a selection of some of the latest images that have been sent back to us from Ukraine over the newswires.

Residents cook on a makeshift stove propped up by spent tank shells in the port city of Mariupol.
Residents cook on a makeshift stove propped up by spent tank shells in the port city of Mariupol. Photograph: Maximilian Clarke/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock
A man says goodbye before the train leaves the eastern city of Kramatorsk, in the Donbas region yesterday.
A man says goodbye before the train leaves the eastern city of Kramatorsk, in the Donbas region yesterday. Photograph: Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images
A volunteer rests behind snacks and toys for the Ukrainian refugees passing through Przemysl train station in Poland.
A volunteer rests behind snacks and toys for the Ukrainian refugees passing through Przemysl train station in Poland. Photograph: Amy Katz/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
People board a bus as an evacuation convoy arrives at a displaced persons’ hub in Zaporizhzhia in the early hours.
People board a bus as an evacuation convoy arrives at a displaced persons’ hub in Zaporizhzhia in the early hours. Photograph: Emre Caylak/AFP/Getty Images
An elderly woman collects firewood at the weekend to heat her house in Bucha.
An elderly woman collects firewood at the weekend to heat her house in Bucha. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has said Germany is the main roadblock to new European Union sanctions on Russia.

Reuters reports that asked about the implications of Viktor Orbán winning his fourth consecutive term as Hungary’s prime minister at a news conference, Morawiecki said “We have to see that, regardless of how we approach Hungary, this is the fourth such win and we have to respect democratic elections ... it’s Germany that is the main roadblock on sanctions. Hungary is for the sanctions.”

Updated

The Ukraine MP Yelyzaveta Yasko has been on Sky News in the UK, saying that the scenes from Bucha are unbelievable for the 21st century. She told viewers:

It’s devastating and something that you cannot adjust to, you cannot accept, but at the same time, every day it’s happening. There are more and more victims coming, and if we don’t act very decisively in the world to end this war I will continue seeing this.

She warned that Mariupol and other places could have seen worse events. She said that she has lost her own apartment, and does not know what has happened to her neighbours.

It was put to her that the Russians have claimed that the scenes have been staged to discredit Russia. She said “It’s such a terrible cynicism. The question is how did these societies end up, and that political leadership of Russia end up that they can so easily justify the crimes and the murders and saying that it was just staged?”

She called on the west to act to end the war and provide security guarantees that are “real, not only just on paper”.

“The only way to win in this war is to show strength,” she said. “There cannot be any compromises with Putin at this stage. We’re not going to make any compromises with our territory and the people who already died for defence of Ukraine.”

She called for Vladimir Putin to be held responsible for the actions of Russians in Ukraine, saying “One day there will be justice, and they will pay that price, but when it happens? It happens only if we fight for it.”

Updated

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has just called on France Inter radio for new sanctions in response to what has happened in Ukraine’s Bucha. Reuters reports he said there are very clear clues today pointing to war crimes in Ukraine, and that new sanctions are needed to act as a power of dissuasion.

“What happened in Bucha demands a new round of sanctions and very clear measures,” Macron added. Those new sanctions should target coal and oil, said Macron, who faces a re-election battle this month.

Updated

Prof Michael Clarke, a defence and security expert and a specialist adviser to the House of Commons defence committee, has said that the images coming out of Ukraine are clear evidence of war crimes. He told Sky News:

The deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime in and of itself, every day of the week. So unless somebody can provide a military logic why civilians are targeted, that is a straight war crime. Civilians who appear to have had their hands tied behind their back and were shot. There’s no strategic rationale for that whatsoever.

As to the response from Russia to the accusations, Clarke said:

They always deny it. The Russia deny everything like this. They go through three phases. First of all, they deny everything. And then they try to obfuscate, they create stuff on social media, which indicates ‘Oh it’s all very complicated and this was going on at the time, and that was going on, and no simple answers are possible’.

And then a couple of years later, they often admit it and they say yes, yes, we did do this or we did do that, but you do the same. And they point to some sort of moral equivalence in the West.

They did it over the poisoning of Litvinenko in 2006 and Skripal in 2018. They did it over the bringing down of the civilian airliner over Ukraine. They always deny it. They always do. And nobody believes them. That’s the point.

Updated

In the UK, it has been secretary of state for Wales, Simon Hart, on media duties for the British government. Of the images emerging from Bucha which appear to show mass graves and evidence of the torture and murder of civilians, he said on Sky News:

It just seems to be completely unbelievable. And you have to look twice, blink twice, to be able to actually fully take in what’s happening. I think what we’ve got to do is, as some of the reports have indicated, keep the pressure on in every way we can, whether that’s in the provision of weapons, whether it’s in the provision of financial help, all of the different ways in which we can and have so far intervened we must continue to do, and if anything, we need to step that up.

He repeated several times that “we’re [the UK] leading the world” in response to requests from Ukraine, and have been praised by President Zelenskiy for “leading the world”.

On refugees fleeing to the UK, “We don’t want to be standing there with a clipboard saying no,” the minister said. He was unable to give a number of people from Ukraine who had arrived from Wales, saying that was a matter for the Welsh government. He said it was “a bit harsh” to say that only a handful of Ukrainians had been allowed into the country.

The UNHCR says over 4 million people have fled Ukraine abroad, with over 2 million of those moving to Poland. The UK government has issued about 25,000 visas for people to enter the country.

Ukraine’s agriculture minister said on Monday he expects “quite a large harvest” this year and hopes Ukraine will be able to export grain, but warned that continuation of the war would mean higher prices for all countries, Reuters reports.

The recently-appointed minister, Mykola Solskyi, said the situation was “difficult” with fuel, which is needed for spring fields.

Russia’s foreign ministry said that footage of dead civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha had been “ordered” by the United States as part of a plot to blame Russia.

“Who are the masters of provocation? Of course the United States and Nato,” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in an interview on state television late on Sunday, Reuters reports.

Zakharova said the immediate Western outcry over the images of dead civilians indicated the story had been part of a plan to sully Russia’s reputation.

“In this case, it seems to me that the fact that these statements (about Russia) were made in the first minutes after these materials appeared leaves no doubt as to who ‘ordered’ this story.”

Zakharova offered no evidence to back these claims.

Today so far

Before I hand this liveblog over to my colleague, Martin Belam, here is a quick refresher of where the situation currently stands.

  • Ukraine has accused Russian forces of committing war crimes and a “massacre” in Bucha, a town just 30km northwest of the capital Kyiv, after the bodies of unarmed Ukrainian civilians and mass graves were found on Sunday. Bodies of civilians - many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture - were found on the streets after Ukrainian troops reclaimed the town.
  • Ukrainian prosecutors said they found 410 bodies in towns near Kyiv, and 140 bodies had been examined on Sunday. Russia denied allegations that its forces had killed civilians as it retreated from war-torn areas of the country.
  • Satellite images from Bucha appear to show an approximately 45ft-long trench dug into the grounds of a church where a mass grave has been identified.
  • World leaders condemned the killings and called for independent investigations. French president Emmanuel Macron, UN secretary general António Guterres, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, British prime minister Boris Johnson and US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield all publicly condemned Russia’s actions.
  • The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, described the killings as “a punch to the gut” and joined western allies in vowing to document the atrocities to hold the perpetrators to account.
  • Russia described the situation in Bucha as a “provocation” by Ukraine intended to disrupt peace talks. The Kremlin’s foreign ministry said Russia was seeking a UN security council meeting on the matter. Its defence ministry described the photos and videos as “another staged performance by the Kyiv regime”. Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s UN security council deputy representative, tweeted on Sunday: “In the light of heinous provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha Russia requested a meeting of UN Security Council on Monday April 4.”
  • Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned Russian forces as “murderers”, “torturers” and “rapists” after the killings came to light, describing the Kremlin-ordered attack on his country as amounting to genocide . “How did they also become butchers? ... They killed deliberately and with pleasure,” he said in a national address late on Sunday. He vowed to investigate and prosecute all Russian “crimes” in Ukraine.
  • Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dymtro Kuleba, said Bucha was a “deliberate massacre” while speaking on Times Radio on Sunday. Describing Russia as “worse than Isis”, he said Russian forces were guilty of murder, torture, rape and looting. He also urged G7 countries to impose “devastating” sanctions immediately.
  • Zelenskiy criticised the west’s “policy of concessions to Russia” in the lead up to the war. Describing Ukraine’s past pursuit of Nato membership: “They thought that by refusing Ukraine, they would be able to appease Russia, to convince it to respect Ukraine and live normally next to us ... I invite Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy to visit Bucha and see what the policy of concessions to Russia has led to in 14 years. To see with their own eyes the tortured Ukrainian men and women.”
  • Russian forces continued their attacks on other Ukraine cities. Seven people died and 34 were wounded after a residential area in Kharkiv was struck on Sunday, local prosecutors said.
  • At least 70% of Chernihiv has been destroyed by Russian forces, the city’s mayor said on Sunday. Vladyslav Atroshenko said the “consequences” of the attacks were severe and mirrored those of other badly damaged cities in Ukraine such as Bucha and Mariupol.
  • Russian forces are continuing to “consolidate and reorganise” their offensive in the Donbas, while the capture of Mariupol is a “key objective” of the Russian invasion, UK’s ministry of defence said.
  • The Ukrainian military claims Russia has launched a “hidden mobilisation” of around 60,000 soldiers to replenish units lost in Ukraine, according to its latest operational report.
  • Russian missiles struck “critical infrastructure”, most likely a fuel depot, near Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa in the early hours of Sunday but there were no casualties, officials in the city said.
  • The European Union should consider a ban on gas imports from Russia, German defence minister Christine Lambrecht has said.
  • The huge scale of sexual violence endured by women and girls in Ukraine has begun to emerge as victims recount the abuse they have suffered at the hands of Russian soldiers.
  • The United Nations’ human rights office says there have been 3,455 civilian casualties since the war in Ukraine began. The figure includes more than 1,400 deaths and over 2,000 injuries but the actual number is believed to be considerably higher, the agency said in recently published report.
  • Zelenskiy appeared in a video message at the Grammy awards, calling for viewers to “fill the silence with your music” and “tell the truth about the war” across social networks and on TV.

Russia requests UN meeting over 'provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha'

Russia hopes to hold an an emergency UN security council meeting today after claiming the “provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha” is behind the request for talks.

Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s UNSC deputy representative, tweeted on Sunday:

In the light of heinous provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha Russia requested a meeting of UN Security Council on Monday April 4.”

Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova added that the meeting is to discuss Kyiv’s attempts to disrupt peace talks and escalate violence with a “provocation” in Bucha.

Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel on Sunday:

Russian Federation requested a meeting of the UN Security Council in connection with the provocation of the Ukrainian military and radicals in the city of Bucha.

The idea behind the next crime of the ‘Kyiv’s regime’ is the disruption of peace negotiations and the escalation of violence.”

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy appeared earlier in a video message at the Grammy Awards to ask for support in telling the story of Ukraine’s invasion by Russia.

During the message that aired on the show Sunday, he likened the invasion to a deadly silence threatening to extinguish the dreams and lives of the Ukrainian people.

Our musicians wear body armour instead of tuxedos. They sing to the wounded in hospitals, even to those who can’t hear them ... But the music will break through anyway.”

Fill the silence with your music. Fill it today to tell our story. Tell the truth about the war on your social networks, on TV, support us in any way you can any, but not silence. And then peace will come to all our cities,” Zelenskiy said.

Following his message, John Legend performed his song Free with Ukrainian musicians Siuzanna Iglidan and Mika Newton, and poet Lyuba Yakimchuk, as images from the war were shown on screens behind them.

Russian forces refocusing on Donbas, UK defence ministry says

The UK’s ministry of defence has released its latest intelligence report, claiming Russian forces are continuing to “consolidate and reorganise” their offensive in the Donbas.

Russian forces are continuing to consolidate and reorganise as they refocus their offensive into the Donbas region in the east of Ukraine.

Russian troops, including mercenaries from the Russian state-linked Wagner private military company, are being moved into the area.”

410 bodies found as part of war crimes investigation

A total of 410 bodies have been found in towns near Kyiv as part of an investigation into possible war crimes by Russia, the country’s top prosecutor has said.

Ukrainian authorities have begun to reclaim areas surrounding the capital after Russian forces withdrew over recent days.

The mayor in Bucha, a liberated town 37km (23 miles) northwest of the capital, said that 300 residents had been killed by Russian forces while Chechen fighters controlled the area.

Ukrainian prosecutors have only been able to enter the towns of Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel for the first time on Sunday as they begin to process the number of casualties and work out the extent of possible war crimes.

Ukrainian authorities have begun to reclaim areas surrounding the capital after Russian forces withdrew over recent days.
Ukrainian authorities have begun to reclaim areas surrounding the capital after Russian forces withdrew over recent days. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venedyktova, said in a statement on Sunday: “410 bodies of killed civilians have been taken from the territory of Kiev region ... 140 of them have already been examined by prosecutors and other specialists.

“We need to work with witnesses,” Venedyktova said, adding that authorities would be looking at photos and video evidence.

“People today are so stressed that they are physically unable to speak.”

In a national address on Sunday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy saidf he believed hundreds of people were killed. “Tortured, executed civilians. Corpses on the streets. Mined areas. Even the bodies of the dead were mined.”

Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy said it was clear hundreds of civilians had been killed, but that he did not want to say exactly how many there were, as efforts were still under way to clear mines in the area.

“Many local residents are considered missing. We cannot give an exact figure, but there are a lot of people,” he said.

What we know about what happened in Bucha, Ukraine

Ukraine has accused Russian forces of committing a “massacre” in Bucha, a town just 30km northwest of the capital Kyiv.

Bodies of civilians - many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture - were found littering some streets after Ukrainian troops reclaimed the town.

This is what we know at this stage about what happened in Bucha, as reported by Agence France-Presse.

Bucha, a commuter town of around 37,000 outside Kyiv, as well as the nearby town of Irpin, saw fierce fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February.

Bucha was occupied by the Russian army on the third day of the war, on 26 February, and remained inaccessible for more than a month. Many residents were trapped by the incessant fighting and deprived of water and electricity while surviving in freezing temperatures.

When shelling stopped on Thursday, Ukrainian forces were only able to fully enter the town.

A young Ukrainian boy plays next next to destroyed Russian military machinery in the city of Bucha, Ukraine.
A young Ukrainian boy plays next next to destroyed Russian military machinery in the city of Bucha, Ukraine. Photograph: Atef Safadi/EPA

AFP journalists on Saturday described seeing massive holes left by shells in apartment blocks, numerous wrecked cars and streets littered with debris or downed power lines.

The journalists also reported seeing the bodies of at least 22 people in civilian clothes on a single street in the town. One was on the pavement near a bicycle, others had bags of provisions near them. Another man was found with his hands tied behind his back.

These reports were corroborated by Associated Press journalists who said they saw the bodies of at least 21 people in various places around Bucha. One group of nine, all in civilian clothes, were reportedly scattered around a site that residents said Russian troops used as a base. They appeared to have been killed at close range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs, one was shot in the head, and another’s legs were bound, AP reported.

The cause of death of the victims found has not been able to be immediately determined.

Witnesses of alleged atrocities in Bucha told the Guardian that Russian soldiers had fired on men fleeing the town, and had killed civilians at will. Taras Schevchenko, 43, said Russian soldiers had refused to allow men to leave through a humanitarian corridor, instead shooting at them as they fled across an open field. Bodies, he said, were scattered on the pavements, with some of those killed having been “squashed by tanks … like animal skin rugs”.

Shevchenko’s mother, Yevdokia, 77, said she had witnessed an elderly man who had challenged a Russian soldier being shot dead as his wife stood next to him. “They shot him dead, and ordered the woman to leave,” she said. The accounts could not be independently verified.

According to the mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, the victims were killed by Russian forces with a “bullet in the back of the neck”.

The corpses of 57 people were found in a mass grave, the chief of local rescue efforts Serhiy Kaplychniy, said as he showed AFP the trench where the bodies lay.

The mass grave is behind a church in the town’s centre. Some of the bodies were either unburied or partially buried. They were all dressed in civilian clothes.

Ukrainian soldiers inspect the wreckage of a destroyed Russian armoured column on a road in Bucha, a suburb just north of the Capital, Kyiv.
Ukrainian soldiers inspect the wreckage of a destroyed Russian armoured column on a road in Bucha, a suburb just north of the Capital, Kyiv. Photograph: Matthew Hatcher/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

On Sunday Mayor Fedoruk said 280 people were buried in mass graves because they could not have be buried in cemeteries that were within firing range.

“We found mass graves. We found people with their hands and legs tied up... with bullet holes in the back of their heads,” presidential spokesman Sergiy Nikiforov told the BBC Sunday.

The mayor of Kyiv who went to Bucha on Sunday, Vitaly Klitschko, told AFP that the exact number of victims was not yet known.

“We believe that more than 300 civilians died,” he said. “This is not a war, it is a genocide, a genocide of the Ukrainian population.”

Updated

'Butchers, murderers, torturers, rapists' Zelenskiy calls Russian forces

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy addressed Russian forces as “murderers”, “torturers” and “rapists” after hundreds of bodies of Ukrainian civilians were found on the streets of towns surrounding Kyiv over the weekend.

He also vowed to investigate and prosecute all Russian “crimes” in Ukraine, saying he had created a “special mechanism” to do so.

In a late-night address, the Ukrainian leader said:

Hundreds of people were killed. Tortured, executed civilians. Corpses on the streets ...

Concentrated evil has come to our land. Murderers. Torturers. Rapists. Looters. Who call themselves the army. And who deserve only death after what they did.”

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy addressed Russian forces as “murderers”, “torturers” and “rapists” in an address on Sunday.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy addressed Russian forces as “murderers”, “torturers” and “rapists” in an address on Sunday. Photograph: AP

Addressing the mothers of Russian soldiers, he added:

I want every mother of every Russian soldier to see the bodies of the killed people in Bucha, in Irpin, in Hostomel. What did they do? Why were they killed? What did the man who was riding his bicycle down the street do?

Why were ordinary civilians in an ordinary peaceful city tortured to death? Why were women strangled after their earrings were ripped out of their ears? How could women be raped and killed in front of children?

How could their corpses be desecrated even after death? Why did they crush the bodies of people with tanks? What did the Ukrainian city of Bucha do to your Russia? How did all this become possible?

Russian mothers! Even if you raised looters, how did they also become butchers? ... They killed deliberately and with pleasure.”

Satellite images purport to show 45ft-long mass grave in Bucha

Satellite images of the Ukrainian town of Bucha purport to show an approximately 45ft-long trench dug into the grounds of a church believed to be a mass grave for murdered civilians.

The images, captured by private US space technology company Maxar Technologies on 31 March, show signs of excavation on the grounds of the Church of St Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints, the company said.

Reuters journalists who visited Bucha on Saturday said they observed a mass grave at a church, describing seeing hands and feet poking through red clay.

Maxar Technologies, which collects and publishes satellite imagery of Ukraine, said the first signs of excavation for a mass grave at the Church of St Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints were seen on 10 March.

“More recent coverage on 31 March shows the grave site with an approximately 45-foot-long trench in the southwestern section of the area near the church,” Maxar said.

The Guardian could not immediately verify the images.

A satellite image released by Maxar Technologies on April 3 shows a of a probable grave site near the Church of Saint Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints in Bucha, Ukraine.
A satellite image released by Maxar Technologies on April 3 shows a of a probable grave site near the Church of Saint Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints in Bucha, Ukraine. Photograph: Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Tech/AFP/Getty Images
A closer view of a probable grave site is seen behind the church.
A closer view of a probable grave site is seen behind the church. Photograph: Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Tech/AFP/Getty Images
A mass grave is seen behind a church in the town of Bucha, northwest of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
A mass grave is seen behind a church in the town of Bucha, northwest of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Photograph: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images

Russia mobilising another 60,000 soldiers, Ukraine military says

The Ukrainian military has just released its operational report as of 6am this morning, claiming Russia has launched a “hidden mobilisation” of around 60,000 soldiers to replenish units lost in Ukraine.

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation plans to engage around 60,000 people during the mobilisation,” the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said.

Officials added the Ukrainian forces thwarted seven attack in the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk over the past 24 hours.

A damaged tank seen in the Hostomel region in Bucha, Ukraine.
A damaged tank seen in the Hostomel region in Bucha, Ukraine. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Summary

Hello it’s Samantha Lock with you as we continue to deliver the latest developments from Ukraine.

Distressing reports are emerging from the towns of Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel near the capital of Kyiv where the discovery of the bodies of unarmed civilians in mass graves and on roadsides have prompted world leaders to call for independent investigations into war crimes.

Here is a rundown of what we know so far:

  • Ukraine has accused Russian forces of committing war crimes and a “massacre” in Bucha, a town just 30km northwest of the capital Kyiv, after the bodies of unarmed Ukrainian civilians and mass graves were found on Sunday. Bodies of civilians - many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture - were found on the streets after Ukrainian troops reclaimed the town.
  • Ukrainian prosecutors said they found 410 bodies in towns near Kyiv, and 140 bodies had been examined on Sunday. Russia denied allegations that its forces had killed civilians as it retreated from war-torn areas of the country.
  • Satellite images from Bucha appear to show an approximately 45ft-long trench dug into the grounds of a church where a mass grave has been identified.
  • World leaders condemned the killings and called for independent investigations. French president Emmanuel Macron, UN secretary general António Guterres, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, British prime minister Boris Johnson and US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield all publicly condemned Russia’s actions.
  • The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, described the killings as “a punch to the gut” and joined western allies in vowing to document the atrocities to hold the perpetrators to account.
  • Russia described the situation in Bucha as a “provocation” by Ukraine intended to disrupt peace talks. The Kremlin’s foreign ministry said Russia was seeking a UN security council meeting on the matter. Its defence ministry described the photos and videos as “another staged performance by the Kyiv regime”. Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s UN security council deputy representative, tweeted on Sunday: “In the light of heinous provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha Russia requested a meeting of UN Security Council on Monday April 4.”
  • Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned Russian forces as “murderers”, “torturers” and “rapists” after the killings came to light, describing the Kremlin-ordered attack on his country as amounting to genocide . “How did they also become butchers? ... They killed deliberately and with pleasure,” he said in a national address late on Sunday. He vowed to investigate and prosecute all Russian “crimes” in Ukraine.
  • Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dymtro Kuleba, said Bucha was a “deliberate massacre” while speaking on Times Radio on Sunday. Describing Russia as “worse than Isis”, he said Russian forces were guilty of murder, torture, rape and looting. He also urged G7 countries to impose “devastating” sanctions immediately.
  • Zelenskiy criticised the west’s “policy of concessions to Russia” in the lead up to the war. Describing Ukraine’s past pursuit of Nato membership: “They thought that by refusing Ukraine, they would be able to appease Russia, to convince it to respect Ukraine and live normally next to us ... I invite Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy to visit Bucha and see what the policy of concessions to Russia has led to in 14 years. To see with their own eyes the tortured Ukrainian men and women.”
  • Russian forces continued their attacks on other Ukraine cities. Seven people died and 34 were wounded after a residential area in Kharkiv was struck on Sunday, local prosecutors said.
  • At least 70% of Chernihiv has been destroyed by Russian forces, the city’s mayor said on Sunday. Vladyslav Atroshenko said the “consequences” of the attacks were severe and mirrored those of other badly damaged cities in Ukraine such as Bucha and Mariupol.
  • The capture of Mariupol is a “key objective” of the Russian invasion, UK’s ministry of defence said as heavy fighting continues in the southeastern city.
  • Russian missiles struck “critical infrastructure”, most likely a fuel depot, near Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa in the early hours of Sunday but there were no casualties, officials in the city said.
  • The European Union should consider a ban on gas imports from Russia, German defence minister Christine Lambrecht has said.
  • The huge scale of sexual violence endured by women and girls in Ukraine has begun to emerge as victims recount the abuse they have suffered at the hands of Russian soldiers.
  • The United Nations’ human rights office says there have been 3,455 civilian casualties since the war in Ukraine began. The figure includes more than 1,400 deaths and over 2,000 injuries but the actual number is believed to be considerably higher, the agency said in recently published report.
  • Zelenskiy appeared in a video message at the Grammy awards, calling for viewers to “fill the silence with your music” and “tell the truth about the war” across social networks and on TV.

Please feel free to get in touch with any feedback or tips through Twitter or email.

Updated

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Dua Lipa’s pickle drink is latest twist in growing appreciation for ‘dirty’ cocktails
Brine from pickled onions, beetroot, pickles and even oysters is now a fixture on bar menus across the UK
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
No, mouth-taping won’t give you a ‘snatched’ jaw. But it might improve your sleep quality
IN FOCUS: As the trend of taping one’s lips closed at night goes viral, Inga Parkel speaks to experts about whether the practice actually has any aesthetic benefits – or if it’s yet another online sensation best to brush off
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
'Squid Game' showrunner teases 'more intriguing games' for season 2 of the Netflix hit
Plus, what's in store for fans when 'Squid Game' season 3 drops in 2025
Tom’s Guide
Tom’s Guide
Ellen DeGeneres embraces fresh start in England with bold new look
DeGeneres was seen with a brand new hairstyle while spending time in Jeremy Clarkson’s pub in the Cotswolds
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
“People have used it as their wedding song. I often think, ‘Hey, did you listen to the lyrics?’”: The classic number one hit with a sting in its tail
And with the money it made, the band bought an oil well!
MusicRadar
MusicRadar
Mystery chemical in drinking water identified after 40 years—and nobody knows if it's toxic
The byproduct of chloramine—used to disinfect drinking water—and naturally occurring chemicals has finally been identified: chloranitramide.
Fortune
Fortune
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play