Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Mario Draghi went Thursday morning to Irpin, one of the towns in the suburbs of Kyiv that has become a symbol of the destruction and atrocities committed during the occupation of the region by the Russian army in March, noted the AFP on site.
European leaders, joined by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, were guided by armed Ukrainian soldiers, surrounded by heavy security and a crowd of journalists.
Like other foreign leaders who came to kyiv before them, MM. Macron, Scholz, Draghi and Iohannis strolled through the streets of Irpin, where the scars of the bombings are omnipresent.
The leaders asked their guide questions about the return of the town’s residents and the planned reconstruction work, before watching a video of a few minutes showing Irpin three months ago, at the height of the fighting.
On the walls of a destroyed building, one could read “Make Europe Not War” (“Make Europe, not war”). An inscription that Macron saw and commented on: “it’s the right message (…) it’s very moving to see that,” he said.
Irpin, at the northwestern gates of kyiv, was the scene of fierce clashes between Russians and Ukrainians in the early days of the Russian invasion in late February. The Russian army quickly took control of this well-to-do suburb, surrounded by pine trees, which had 60,000 inhabitants before the war, which it then occupied throughout the month of March.
kyiv has since accused Russian forces of committing war crimes in Irpin and the neighboring towns of Boutcha and Borodianka, after the discovery of hundreds of civilian corpses in these localities after the withdrawal of the Russian army at the end of March.
International investigations are underway to determine the culprits for these war crimes of which the Ukrainians accuse the Russian forces.