Russia drops more bombs on the anniversary of Ukraine’s recapture of the Russian-occupied city

Russia used its long-range arsenal to re-bomb several areas of Ukraine on Friday, killing at least two civilians and damaging homes as Ukrainians commemorated the anniversary of Bucha’s liberation from a brutal occupation by Kremlin forces.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Bucha, a city near Kiev, stood as a symbol of the atrocities committed by the Russian military since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“We will not let it be forgotten,” Zelenskyy said during a formal ceremony in Bucha, vowing to punish those who have committed outrage in the city. “Human dignity will not let it be forgotten. On the streets of Bucha, the world saw Russian evil. Evil exposed.”

Simultaneously with Bucha’s commemorations, the Kremlin-allied Belarusian president upped the ante in the 13-month-old war when he said Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons could be deployed in his country, along with part of Moscow’s tactical nuclear arsenal.

Moscow said earlier this week it plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus that are relatively short-range and low-yield. Strategic nuclear weapons such as missile warheads would carry a greater threat.

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Zelenskyy turned his attention to an official ceremony in Bucha, where he was joined by the president of the Republic of Moldova and the prime ministers of Croatia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Kremlin forces occupied Bucha weeks after they invaded Ukraine and remained there for about a month. When Ukrainian troops retook the city, they encountered horrific scenes: bodies of women, young and old, in civilian clothes, lying in the street where they had fallen or in courtyards and houses.

Other bodies were found in a mass grave. Over the course of weeks and months, hundreds of bodies were discovered, including some children.

Russian soldiers during intercepted telephone conversations called him “zachistka” – cleaning, according to an investigation by the Associated Press and the PBS series “Frontline”.

Such organized cruelty, which Russian troops also employed in past conflicts, notably in Chechnya, was later repeated in Russian-occupied territories throughout Ukraine.

Zelenskyy distributed medals to soldiers, police, doctors, teachers and emergency services in Bucha, as well as the families of two soldiers killed while defending the Kyiv region.

Ukrainians collect their belongings from a building destroyed by Russian bombs on March 31, 2023.

Ukrainians collect their belongings from a building destroyed by Russian bombs on March 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Andriy Andriyenko)

“Ukrainian people, you have stopped the greatest anti-human force of our times,” he said. “You have stopped the force that has no respect and wants to destroy everything that gives meaning to human life.”

More than 1,400 civilian deaths, including 37 children, have been documented in the Bucha district by Ukrainian authorities, Zelenskyy said.

More than 175 people have been found in mass graves and alleged torture chambers, according to Zelenskyy. Ukraine and other countries, including the United States, have called on Russia to answer for war crimes.

Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said on Friday that many of the civilian deaths were tortured. Nearly 100 Russian soldiers are suspected of war crimes, he said on his Telegram channel, and charges have been filed on 35 of them.

Two Russian servicemen have already been sentenced by a Ukrainian court to 12 years in prison for illegal deprivation of liberty of civilians and looting.

“I am convinced that all these crimes are no coincidence. This is part of Russia’s planned strategy to destroy Ukraine as a state and Ukrainians as a nation,” Kostin said.

In Geneva, the UN human rights chief said his office had so far verified the deaths of more than 8,400 civilians in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, a tally believed to be far below the true toll.

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Volker Türk told the UN Human Rights Council that “gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have become shocking routine” during the invasion of Russia.

Besides making an announcement about the possible presence of Russian strategic nuclear weapons on his country’s soil, the Belarusian president also unexpectedly called for a ceasefire in Ukraine without mentioning how the two developments might be linked.

A truce, Lukashenko said in his state of the nation address in Minsk on Friday, must be announced without any preconditions and all troop and weapon movements must be halted.

“It is necessary to stop now until an escalation begins,” Lukashenko said, adding that an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive with Western-supplied weapons would lead “to an irreversible escalation of the conflict.”

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded that Russia must keep fighting, arguing that Ukraine has refused any talks under pressure from its Western allies.

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Peskov also rejected remarks by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban about the European Union considering the deployment of peacekeeping troops in Ukraine “extremely dangerous”.

Russia continued to bombard Ukraine with war already in its second year.

In addition to killing at least two civilians in Ukraine, 14 more civilians were injured early Friday when Russia launched missiles, shells, drone explosions and glide bombs, Ukraine’s presidential office said.

Two Russian missiles hit the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Donetsk region, damaging eight residential buildings. Across the Donetsk region, one civilian was killed and five others injured in the attacks, the office said.

Nine Russian missiles hit Kharkiv, damaging residential buildings, roads, petrol stations and a prison. The Russians have also used explosive drones to attack the Kharkiv region.

Russian forces also shelled the southern city of Kherson, killing one resident and wounding two others. The village of Lviv in the Kherson region was hit by glide bombs that damaged about 10 houses.

The barrage also affected the city of Zaporizhzhia and its suburbs, causing severe fires.

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