The images of dead Ukrainians, some tied with their hands and others buried haphazardly in pits, on Monday spurred Western leaders to promise even tougher sanctions against Russia, possibly also on energy, as the Kremlin dug in and showed signs of preparing for an new attack.
Growing evidence that Russian soldiers killed dozens of civilians in the Kiev suburb of Bucha and left their bodies behind as they retreated prompted President Biden to call on President Vladimir V. Putin for a “war crime trial.” Germany and France have expelled a total of 75 Russian diplomats, and France’s President Emmanuel Macron said the European Union should consider sanctions against Russian coal and oil.
“This man is brutal,” Biden said of Putin. “And what is happening in Bucha is outrageous, and everyone has seen it.”
In Moscow, Mr Putin said nothing on his war in Ukraine on Monday, but his spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said the Kremlin “categorically” denied “all allegations” of Russian involvement in the atrocities. Instead, Russian state media aired relentless conspiracy theories about what they believed to be a Ukrainian fabrication, while authorities threatened to prosecute anyone who publicly blamed Russians for the Bucha murders.
Russia said the bodies were only recently placed on the streets after “all Russian units withdrew completely from Bucha around March 30”. But a review of videos and satellite images by DailyExpertNews shows that many of the civilians were killed more than three weeks ago, when the Russian military had the city under control.
The war in Ukraine could now enter an even more dangerous phase, despite Russia’s withdrawal from areas near Kiev last week.
Ukrainian and Western officials said Russia appeared to be positioning troops for an intensified attack in the eastern Donbas area, where the port city of Mariupol is being brutally besieged. And in Kharkov, about 50 kilometers from the Russian border, a relentless bombardment has left parts of the city of 1.4 million people unrecognizable.
The systematic destruction provides little military gain but is part of a broader strategy to conquer the east of the country, analysts and US military officials say.
With the Russian economy showing some signs of resilience after the initial shock of the far-reaching Western sanctions imposed after Putin’s invasion in February, the Kremlin appeared to be pushing for a continuation of the war, despite talks in European capitals now possible. a ban on Russian coal, oil or, less likely, gas.
“They will not stop,” Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said in a statement Monday. “Putin’s orders to his soldiers to destroy our state have not disappeared.”
During a visit to Bucha on Monday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky left the door open to a negotiated peace, despite the horrific scenes revealed over the weekend. In a camouflage vest, surrounded by soldiers and journalists, Mr. Zelensky accused Russia of “genocide”, but said he still hoped to meet Mr. Putin to try to stop the war.
“Ukraine must be at peace,” said Mr. Zelensky. “We are in Europe in the 21st century. We will continue our efforts diplomatically and militarily.”
Mr Biden, who spoke to reporters in Washington after returning from Delaware, said “information” needed to be gathered for a trial of Mr Putin, who called the Russian leader a “war criminal”. Mr Biden said he would announce more sanctions against Russia at some point, without specifying what they would be.
In Europe, growing evidence of Russian atrocities also seemed to pave the way for more sanctions, even as divisions among EU members remained over whether or not to impose a broad ban on Russian energy imports.
“Today there are very clear signs of war crimes,” Macron, the French president, told France Inter radio. “Those who were responsible for those crimes will have to answer for them.”
European Union ambassadors will meet on Wednesday to discuss another package of sanctions against Russia, but the scope of the new measures is still in flux, diplomats and officials said. A meeting of NATO defense ministers is also scheduled for that day.
Since the start of the conflict, European leaders, along with the United States, have pursued a strategy of introducing sanctions step-by-step, gradually strengthening them to allow more cards to play in case Russia escalates the conflict.
But the outrage at the new revelations of atrocities may shake their hand.
A version of a new EU sanctions package under consideration could include a ban on Russian coal but not oil and gas, EU officials said. A ban on Russian goods entering EU ports is also under consideration, as are smaller measures to close loopholes in existing sanctions, European diplomats and officials said.
While Macron said the new sanctions should target both coal and oil, Christian Lindner, Germany’s finance minister, indicated that coal would be the only Russian energy export included in the sanctions package. The European Union, he said, had to “distinguish between oil, coal and gas”.
Coal, which is largely mined by private companies in Russia, is less critical to the Kremlin’s treasury than the oil and gas industry, in which state-owned companies play a major role.
Germany is the main country preventing the bloc from an outright oil and gas ban, although the idea is also unpopular in other smaller European countries that rely largely on Russian supplies. Berlin has consistently argued that sanctions against Russia should harm Russia more than they harm Europe.
Germany’s hesitation to pass sanctions on oil and gas was seen on Sunday, as cracks appeared in the coalition government’s stance on such a move.
War between Russia and Ukraine: important developments
Defense Secretary Christine Lambrecht said the bloc should consider banning gas imports, while Economy and Energy Secretary Robert Habeck said such a move would not be helpful as Mr Putin “has already started the war.” practically lost”.
“The horrific news from Bucha will certainly put more pressure on the EU to impose energy sanctions on Moscow next Wednesday, but tough oil and gas import bans remain unlikely for now,” said Mujtaba Rahman, general manager for Europe at Eurasia Group. , a consultancy.
“Internal momentum is building after the shutdown of Russian coal,” said Mr Rahman, “If anything, it’s probably the first thing Brussels focuses on on the energy side.”
Mr Rahman said the economic and political costs of a sudden halt to Russian oil and gas imports are too high for most EU leaders for the time being. He said it could get Russia to use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in Ukraine to get the EU to impose sanctions on oil and gas imports.
Still, the revelations about Bucha have prompted Germany and France — two countries that have long been careful not to provoke Russia — to escalate the confrontation with Moscow.
Germany said it would expel 40 Russian diplomats, an unusually high number for a single round of expulsion that Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said was necessary because of the “incredible brutality on the part of the Russian leadership and those who follow its propaganda”.
France also said it would expel “many” Russian diplomats stationed in the country; a State Department official estimated the number at 35.
And Lithuania has expelled the Russian ambassador and recalled its own ambassador from Moscow, the first time a European country has taken such a step since the start of the war.
Russia promised to retaliate for the evictions and rejected the reports of the atrocities in Bucha, describing them as fabricated pretexts for more sanctions. Even state television claimed that Western agents had chosen Bucha for their “provocation” because the town’s name sounded like the English word “butcher.”
It was the latest instance where the Kremlin’s media machine has tried to counter overwhelming evidence of Russian involvement in an atrocity with a deluge of conspiracy theories that have sowed confusion among casual news consumers.
It seemed likely that the approach would work within Russia. The Kremlin story is increasingly the only thing heard by ordinary Russians, with independent news media shut down, access to Facebook and Instagram blocked, and a new censorship law punishing any deviation from that story with a whopping 15 years in prison.
The Russian prosecutor’s office released a statement Monday saying that anyone who refers to the atrocities in Bucha as Russia faces the risk of prosecution.
Anton Trojanovskic reported from Istanbul, and Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Brussels. Reporting contributed by Thomas Gibbons-Nefffrom Kharkov; Megan Special from Krakow, Poland; Constant Meheut and Aurelien Breeden from Paris; Christopher F. Schuetze from Berlin; and Katie Rogers from Washington.