The images are chilling. Bodies littering the streets, lying on the ground. What remains of the town of Boutcha, the scene of a bloodbath, was retaken by the Ukrainians on Saturday, following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kyiv region. And Odessa, a key port city in the south of the country, was bombed on Sunday morning.
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For a month, the inhabitants of Boutcha, to the north-west of the capital, had been living under the Russian invader, deprived of all help. Now released, they are beginning to bear witness to the horror that took place there.
A journalist from Agence France-Presse reports having counted about twenty corpses – dressed in civilian clothes –, including one with his hands tied behind his back, others lying on the sidewalk, in front of a railway station or in the courtyard of a house.
“All these people were shot, killed with a bullet in the back of the neck,” Boutcha mayor Anatoly Fedorouk told AFP.
At Guardiana resident recounts having lost her husband to Russian fire, while the two were trying to flee the city.
I felt something hit my right shoulder, a bullet. I pushed my husband out of the car. But he didn’t move. I realized he was dead. I opened my door and ran.
Halyna Tovkatch, resident of Boutcha
A video, which has circulated widely on social media, shows vehicles criss-crossing a town turned into an open-air cemetery, dodging bodies on the road. The Press was unable to corroborate the authenticity of the video.
Strategic withdrawal
In an announced withdrawal, the last Russian troops left the north of the country on Saturday, confirmed the Ukrainian forces, which have since taken over a dozen towns, devastated by the fighting.
A Kremlin strategy to redeploy its forces in the east and south of the country, after coming up against strong resistance in the capital, said Anessa Kimball, associate professor of international relations at Laval University.
“The war has been going on for more than a month. Russia must ask itself: “Do we want to invest more resources to take Kyiv, when we can take other cities that are strategically more important? “”, she says.
Before retreating, the Russian forces wreaked havoc behind them. In Boutcha, nearly 300 people were buried in mass graves, its mayor, Anatoly Fedorouk, told AFP. The three cemeteries in the municipality are within firing range of Russian soldiers, he said.
Among those who perished, “men and women of all ages,” he continues. “In the street, there are always cars with whole families killed: children, women, grandmothers, men,” he said.
So many losses that remind us that war – and this war, in particular – is not civilized, laments Ekaterina Piskunova, professor of political science at the University of Montreal.
I don’t think these will be the last pictures [de morts civiles]. It’s absolutely horrible, and that’s why we have to put all the pressure we can exert on the parties involved to end it.
Ekaterina Piskunova, professor of political science at the University of Montreal
Ukrainian forces entered Boucha a day or two ago, where access had previously been impossible. The aid operation began on Saturday with a first delivery of basic necessities. The burial of the dead will come later.
Residents of Boucha are “still very scared, still shocked,” Yuri Birioukov, a member of Ukraine’s volunteer territorial defense team, told AFP.
The “liberated” Kyv region
The towns of Irpin, Boutcha, Hostomel and the entire Kyiv region have been “liberated from the invader”, said Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar.
In a video address on Saturday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that the “rapid withdrawal” of Russian forces from the north of the country meant that they wanted to “take over both Donbass and southern Ukraine”.
According to the head of the military administration of the Donetsk region, Pavel Kirilenko, the Russian army again bombarded the Donetsk region in the Donbass at night with phosphorus bombs in some places. Two children died following strikes in the neighboring Luhansk region, according to emergency services.
Russian forces, “after the failure of operations to take Kyiv and other important Ukrainian cities in March”, “seek to take the entire territories of Luhansk and Donetsk”, says the Institute for the Study of War .
Early on Sunday, a series of explosions were heard in Odessa, a Black Sea coastal city vital to the country’s economy, which had been preparing for an attack for several weeks. An AFP reporter noted three columns of black smoke and visible flames, apparently above an industrial area.
On Saturday, seven humanitarian corridors were planned in eastern and southeastern Ukraine, according to Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. The day before, more than 3,000 people had fled the Mariupol region, the epicenter of the fighting, by bus and private cars, the Ukrainian authorities announced. “Humanitarian corridors have worked in three regions: Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhia. We managed to save 6,266 people, including 3,071 from Mariupol,” Volodymyr Zelensky said overnight from Friday to Saturday.
A meeting between Putin and Zelensky?
Possible breakthrough in the negotiations: Moscow has “orally” accepted the main Ukrainian proposals, with the exception of the one concerning Crimea, declared the chief Ukrainian negotiator in the peace talks with Russia, David Arakhamia. Kyiv is now awaiting written confirmation.
Passing on the set of a television program, Mr. Arakhamia suggested that the negotiations between the two countries had advanced considerably and that Russia would have said it was ready for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
It would be the first face-to-face meeting between the two presidents since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, despite repeated invitations from Kyiv.
Expert Ekaterina Piskunova sees a certain “fatigue” on the Russian side. “Six weeks of war, of sanctions, it’s difficult for Russia. Maybe they stimulate this negotiation”, she remarks.
This openness of Vladimir Putin to meet his Ukrainian counterpart is a “progress”, in theory, believes for her part Anessa Kimball. But in practice, Moscow maintains its initial objective: that Ukraine capitulates.
With Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press