The Czech EU Presidency on Saturday called for the creation of a special international tribunal after the discovery of hundreds of bodies buried near Izium, a town recaptured from the Russians in eastern Ukraine, where fighting continues.
“In the 21st century, such attacks on the civilian population are unthinkable and heinous,” Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said on Twitter on Saturday. “I call for the rapid creation of a special international court”.
Ukrainian authorities reported on Friday “450 bodies of civilians bearing signs of violent death and torture” buried in a wood on the outskirts of Izium.
“We know that some were killed (shot), others died from artillery fire, trauma from mine explosions. Some died in airstrikes” and “many bodies have not yet been identified”, explained Serguiy Botvinov, a regional police official.
In his daily address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Saturday evening that “the exhumation process is continuing”. “New evidence of torture has been found,” he added.
An AFP journalist was able to see at least one body at the site with its hands tied with rope.
“More than 10 torture chambers have already been discovered in different liberated towns in the Kharkiv region” (north-west), where Izium is located, according to Mr. Zelensky. “Torture was a widespread practice in the occupied territories.”
“That’s what the Nazis did. This is what the ruscists do” (Russian fascists), he added, promising to find those responsible “on the battlefield and in court”.
The Ukrainian human rights official, Dmytro Loubinets, spoke of “probably more than 1,000 Ukrainian citizens tortured and killed in the liberated territories”.
The announcement of this gruesome discovery has sparked a new wave of indignation in the West, just over five months after the Russian army, driven out of the vicinity of kyiv, left behind hundreds of corpses of civilians, including a a certain number bore traces of torture and summary executions, particularly in the locality of Boutcha.
“The world must react”
“The world has to react to all this. Russia repeated to Izioum what it had done to Boutcha,” said Mr. Zelensky in a video message on Friday evening, welcoming that the UN announced that it was sending a team of investigators to the spot.
The United States and the European Union have expressed their indignation, holding responsible the Russian leadership which, assured the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, will have to “be accountable”.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said she wants Russian President Vladimir Putin to appear before international justice for war crimes.
Biden warning
US President Joe Biden for his part once again warned his Russian counterpart against the use of chemical or nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
“It would change the course of the war, as never since the Second World War […] Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it,” Mr. Biden urged on CBS, promising a “substantial” response from the United States if this step were to be taken.
On the ground, where the Ukrainian forces armed by the West have taken over thousands of square kilometers thanks to a counter-offensive in the northeast, fighting and bombardments continue.
In Kupyansk, recaptured last week by Ukrainian forces, clashes continue with the Russian army entrenched on the east side of the Oskil river, AFP journalists noted.
Artillery fire resounds throughout the city partially destroyed by the fighting, and rare inhabitants venture into the streets where Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers circulate.
The Ukrainian police had not yet reinvested the police station, damaged and in disorder, in front of which lies on the ground a torn red flag of the Russian army.
According to a statement from the Ukrainian General Staff, “the enemy carried out during the day four missile strikes and 15 air strikes, as well as more than 20 multiple rocket launcher strikes on civilian and military sites in Ukraine. “.
In the Kharkiv region, an 11-year-old girl was killed by Russian missile fire on the town of Chuiguiv, Governor Oleg Synegoubov said.
Plant bombed
A thermal power station was “bombarded by Russian invaders” on Saturday morning in Mykolaivka, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region (east), said on Telegram, indicating that Ukrainian firefighters were fighting the fire and that the bombardment had caused drinking water cuts.
“The occupiers are deliberately targeting infrastructure in the area to try to inflict as much damage as possible, first and foremost on the civilian population,” he charged.
He had previously reported two civilians killed and 11 injured in the past 24 hours by Russian fire.
In the neighboring region of Dnipropetrovsk, “the Russians fired all night at the Nikopol district with Grad (multiple rocket launchers) and heavy artillery”, local governor Valentin Reznichenko said, indicating that he did not There were no casualties but significant material damage.
According to the head of the local assembly, Mykola Loukachouk, however, Russian fire has killed two people and injured three in the last 24 hours.
In the south, “one person died in Dmitrivka after enemy shelling,” said the governor of the Mykolaiv region, Vitali Kim.
The Russian army, which denies targeting civilian infrastructure or residential areas, claims to have carried out “high precision” strikes against Ukrainian positions in the Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions.
As for the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant, which has been at stake in recent weeks in clashes between Russians and Ukrainians which had led to the shutdown of all its reactors, it has been reconnected to the Ukrainian network, which makes it possible to secure the cooling of the installations, announced the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Saturday.
In kyiv on Saturday, hundreds of Ukrainians took part in the national opera in a farewell ceremony for the former soloist dancer then pedagogue Oleksandr Chapoval, killed by a mortar fire on September 12 at 47 years old in the east of the country, where he had enlisted to fight the Russians.