Kyiv:
The recent discovery of bodies scattered on the streets of the Ukrainian city of Bucha after the withdrawal of Russian troops has sparked global outrage.
In response, US President Joe Biden on Monday called for a war crimes trial and increased sanctions against Russia. The EU said it was ready to send a team of investigators to collect evidence of possible war crimes after mass graves were discovered near the Ukrainian capital.
The Kremlin denies that Russian troops killed civilians and claims the images of dead bodies in Bucha are “fake” produced by “Ukrainian radicals”.
A Russian bombing raid on the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv on Monday also killed ten civilians and injured 46. In a shocking discovery, Ukrainian authorities also found the bodies of five civilians tied with their hands in a village west of Kiev, including that of the city’s mayor, her husband and son.
Here are the LIVE updates on the war between Russia and Ukraine:
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Russia will respond proportionately to the expulsion of its diplomats from a number of Western countries, Russian ex-president and deputy head of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said late Monday.
“Everyone knows the answer: it will be symmetrical and destructive to bilateral relations,” Medvedev said in a message on his Telegram channel.
‘Who did they punish? First of all himself.’
On Monday, France said it would expel 35 Russian diplomats over Moscow’s actions in Ukraine and Germany declared a “significant number” of Russian diplomats undesirable.
The United States and Europe are planning new sanctions on Tuesday to punish Moscow for killing civilians in Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that more deaths were likely to be discovered in areas occupied by Russian invaders.
Russian forces withdrew from towns north of the capital Kiev last week as it focuses its attack on southern and eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian troops recaptured towns devastated by nearly six weeks of war, including Bucha, where dead civilians lined the streets.
Searing images of a mass grave in Bucha and the tied-up bodies of people shot at close range sparked international protests on Monday. US President Joe Biden called for a war crimes trial against Russian President Vladimir Putin, with Washington, Germany and France promising new sanctions against Moscow.
Russia denied all charges linked to the killing of civilians and said it would submit “empirical evidence” to a United Nations Security Council meeting on Tuesday to prove its forces were not involved.