Russian missiles hit kyiv on Thursday evening, for the first time since mid-April and in the midst of a visit by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who for his part regretted that the United Nations Security Council had not succeeded in avoiding war in Ukraine.
AFP journalists saw one floor of a building on fire with black smoke billowing from shattered windows, while many police and rescue workers were present.
“In the evening, the enemy fired on kyiv. Two strikes on the Chevchenkovsky district”, “on the lower floors of a residential building”, three people were hospitalized, said the mayor of the capital, Vitali Klitschko.
“This says a lot about Russia’s true attitude towards international institutions, about Russian leaders’ efforts to humiliate the UN and everything the organization stands for,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky commented shortly after in a video. .
Mr. Guterres “shocked”, but “safe”, for his part wanted to reassure a spokesperson for the United Nations, Saviano Abreu, deploring that “it happened near where we were”, although this or a “war zone”.
The Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, according to whom the devices fired were cruise missiles, referred to this as a “heinous act of barbarism” and the head of the presidential administration, Andriï Yermak, called for deprive Russia of its right of veto in the UN Security Council.
A few hours earlier, Joe Biden had reiterated his country’s support for Ukraine in the face of “atrocities and aggression” and asked for an extension of 33 billion dollars from Congress.
The United States “does not attack” Russia but “helps Ukraine defend itself” and has already delivered ten anti-tank weapons for each Russian tank, assured the American president.
Over 8,000 alleged war crimes
Arrived Thursday in Ukraine, where he was going for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, Mr. Guterres spoke with Mr. Zelensky, regretting that the Security Council had failed to prevent and stop the war started on February 24 by Moscow.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a violation of its territorial integrity and of the United Nations Charter,” he said once again.
“Ten soldiers from the Russian 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade, part of the Russian 35th Army, have been indicted” for alleged war crimes in Bucha, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine announced on Telegram on the same day. .
Ukrainian investigators have also identified “more than 8,000 cases” of alleged war crimes since the start of the Russian invasion, then clarified Iryna Venediktova in an interview with the German media Deutsche Welle.
On April 2, in Boutcha, AFP journalists discovered a street strewn with corpses, those of men dressed as civilians.
And the United Nations claimed to have documented the “murder, including some by summary execution”, of 50 civilians, after a mission to this city on April 9. These indictments are the first since these macabre discoveries.
The prosecutor specified that the ten men would be the subject of research, with a view to arresting them and bringing them to justice. Russia had denied any responsibility in early April and spoke of “staged” bodies.
To see: Where are we after two months of conflict?
Antonio Guterres had called on Moscow a few hours earlier on Thursday to cooperate with the International Criminal Court’s investigation into possible war crimes, during a trip to Boutcha and other kyiv suburbs the scene of abuses attributed by the Ukrainians to the Russian forces.
“When we see this horrible site, I see how important it is to have a full investigation and to establish accountability,” Mr. Guterres said. “I call on Russia to agree to cooperate with the ICC,” he added.
During a meeting the day before in Moscow with Vladimir Putin, he had asked Moscow to collaborate with the UN to allow the evacuation of civilians from the bombarded areas.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for its part called on Thursday for the creation of an “international criminal tribunal (ICC) ad hoc to try “the perpetrators of the crime of aggression against Ukraine”.
“Apocalypse” in Mariupol
At the same time, the United Nations coordinator in Ukraine announced that she was leaving for the south of that country to prepare an attempt to evacuate the besieged and devastated port city of Mariupol, almost entirely controlled by Russian forces.
The UN is doing “everything possible” to evacuate the civilians of the “apocalypse” in this city, assured Thursday Mr. Guterres, according to whom it is “a crisis in the crisis” and “thousands of civilians need vital aid”.
The southern and eastern regions, where the Russian attacks are now concentrated, were also under heavy bombardment during his visit.
“The enemy is intensifying its offensive. The occupiers carry out strikes practically in all directions”, with particularly intense activity in the regions of Kharkiv and in the Donbass, underlined the Ukrainian general staff. According to him, the Russian army is trying to prevent the transfer of Ukrainian forces from the north to the east.
The Russian army for its part claimed to have destroyed in the night with “high precision missiles” two depots of armaments and ammunition in the Kharkiv region, and carried out air raids on 67 Ukrainian military sites.
In Kherson, the only major city that the Russians have completely taken over since their invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, the Russian local administration said on Thursday it wanted to introduce the ruble instead of the Ukrainian hryvnia to from May 1.
It is “an act of annexation and a serious violation by Russia” of the UN Charter, denounced Lioudmyla Denissova, responsible for human rights in the Ukrainian Parliament.
In the south, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been unable since the invasion to gain access to the Zaporijjia nuclear power station, controlled by the Russians. IAEA director Rafael Grossi, back from Ukraine, said he was “concerned”.
Also on Thursday, the commander of the Ukrainian air force estimated that the missile launchers provided by the West had insufficient range to “reach the occupier’s planes, which drop bombs on our cities at eight kilometers altitude and more ” .
“We need medium and long-range anti-aircraft systems” and “modern fighters,” said Mykola Olechchuk.
The German deputies, for their part, voted by a large majority for a motion asking their government, hitherto cautious on the issue, to speed up the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine.
An adviser to the Ukrainian presidency has meanwhile hinted that kyiv could attack military targets in Russia.
“Ukraine will defend itself by all means, including strikes on Russian assassins’ warehouses and bases. The world recognizes this right, ”wrote Mykhaïlo Podoliak on Twitter on Thursday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for his part, repeated on Thursday that he was ready to “take the initiative” to end the war, during a telephone conversation with Mr. Putin, according to Ankara. Turkey hosted direct negotiations between the two parties twice in March, and Moscow and Washington conducted an exchange of prisoners on its soil on Wednesday.