Zelenskyy visited Bucha, town reclaimed from Russia where 300 civilians were killed

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a rare in-person visit to the Kyiv suburb of Bucha on Monday.

Over the weekend, Ukraine accused Russian forces of killing 300 civilians in the town during their occupation, prompting Zelenskyy to say: Concentrated evil has come to our land.

The Zelenskyy advisor Oleksiy Arestovych said on Sunday that some victims were shot in the head with their hands tied behind their back, and that women were raped before they were killed.

Zelenskyy and his team visited Bucha on Monday, saying in a video message that Ukraine would not rest until it has found those responsible.

In a Telegram post Monday, Zelenskyy wrote: “With my own eyes I saw Bucha, Irpin, Stoyanka after the occupation. We will do our best to bring them back to life as soon as possible.”

On Monday, a senior US diplomat said the US was moving to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council following evidence of mass killings in Bucha.

Ukraine is continuing to call on the West and NATO to provide arms and impose heavier sanctions on Russia as Putin’s plan appears to fail in its primary aims.

Russia said last week it was scaling back attacks on Kyiv, but Ukraine and the West have seen it more as a repositioning of troops rather than a goodwill gesture.

In a Sunday address, Zelenskyy called out former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy for effectively blocking Ukraine from joining NATO in 2008, inviting them”to visit Bucha and see what Russia’s policy of concessions has led to over the past 14 years.”

“See with your own eyes the tortured and slain Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy said.

Russia is now being accused of committing war crimes by the United States and countries throughout Europe after graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, some with their hands bound and shot at close range.

Russian ambassador to the UN claims Ukraine ‘staged’ Bucha atrocities.

Russia is not responsible for the atrocities that Ukraine claims occurred in Bucha, the Russian Ambassador to the United Nations claimed in a press conference on Monday.

Ambassador Vasily Alekseevich Nebenzya claimed that experts who analyzed the video showing dead bodies on the street in Bucha and concluded the scene was staged, alleging that the people lying on the street showed signs of life and that it was clear the first stages of decomposition, which would have occurred in the days after Russian military forces had withdrawn, have not taken place.

To back his claims, Nebenzya played a video, purportedly filmed on Saturday after Russian forces left Bucha, and pointed out that there were no dead bodies on the streets.

Nebenzya also alleged that the Ukrainian military interviewed people in different locations throughout Bucha and there was no mention of a civilian massacre.

“Now the nationalists have a pretext to commit a real massacre” Nebenzya said, claiming Ukraine would use Bucha as a false flag operation. “We want the world to stay alert.”

Nebenzya added that the “truth of what happened in Bucha will reveal itself” and that he will present “even more” evidence to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

(ABC News)

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