The Czech Republic, which chairs the European Union, on Saturday called for an international war crimes tribunal after hundreds of bodies were found in mass graves near the town of Izyum in eastern Ukraine after they were recaptured from Russian forces.
“In the 21st century, such heinous attacks on civilians are unimaginable,” Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, whose country presides over the European Union, wrote on Saturday.
“We must not ignore this. We demand the punishment of all war criminals,” he said, adding: “I call for the speedy establishment of a special international court to prosecute the crime of aggression.”
On Friday, Ukrainian authorities announced that “450 bodies of civilians with signs of violent death and torture” were found buried in a forest on the outskirts of Izyum in the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine.
An AFP reporter at the scene was able to see at least one body, handcuffed with rope.
“Most likely, on the lands liberated from the Kharkiv region, more than a thousand citizens of Ukraine were tortured and killed,” Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets said on Telegram.
Director of the National Police Igor Klymenko also reported the discovery of ten “torture chambers” in the cities of the Kharkiv region recaptured from the Russians, including six in Izyum.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the crimes of an army of “murderers and executioners” in a video via Telegram.
The discovery of the mass graves sparked a wave of condemnation in the West about five months after the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Kyiv area in late March, leaving behind the bodies of hundreds of civilians, many with signs of torture. and executions, especially in the city of Bucha.
“The world needs to respond to all of this,” Zelenskiy said in his daily video message on Friday night. “Russia repeated in Izyum what it did in Bucha,” praising the UN’s announcement of sending a team to participate in the investigation in Ukraine.
The United States and the European Union voiced their condemnation, blaming the Russian administration.
“Russia, its political leaders and all those involved in the ongoing violations of international law and international humanitarian law in Ukraine will be held accountable,” EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said on Friday.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called on Thursday, before mass graves and bodies were found in Izyum, to face an international court of Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes.
For his part, US President Joe Biden again warned Putin against using chemical or nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
“This will change the course of the war in a way that hasn’t happened since World War II,” Biden said in an interview that aired on CBS Friday night.
He added: “Don’t. Do not do it. Don’t,” promising an “appropriate” response from the United States should this happen.
On the ground, fighting and shelling continue after Ukrainian forces armed with Western weapons recaptured thousands of square kilometers from the Russians as part of a counteroffensive launched in the northeast of the country.
In Kobyansk, which was recaptured by Ukrainian forces last week, clashes continue with the Russian army, which has entrenched itself on the eastern end of the Oskil River, AFP reporters report.
The Ukrainian police have not yet entered the damaged police station, and in front of its entrance, the red banner of the Russian army was torn down to the ground.
And the General Staff of Ukraine said in a statement that “during the day, the enemy launched four missile strikes and 15 air strikes, as well as more than twenty strikes from multiple launch rocket systems against civilian and military targets in Ukraine.”
In the Kharkiv region, an 11-year-old girl died when Russian missiles hit the city of Chuev, Governor Oleg Senegubov said.
In the country’s east, Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavel Kirilenko said Saturday morning “Russian occupiers bombed” a heating plant in Mykolaivka, noting that Ukrainian fire brigades were fighting the fire that had started there and that the bombing was cutting off drinking water.
He accused Russian forces of “deliberately targeting infrastructure in the region in order to cause the greatest possible harm, primarily to the civilian population.”
Earlier it was reported that over the past day, as a result of Russian fire, two civilians were killed and 11 were injured.
In the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, local governor Valentin Ryzhnichenko confirmed that “the Russians had been bombarding the Nikopol area with Grad rockets and heavy artillery all night,” noting that the bombing caused serious material damage without loss of life.
However, the head of the local council, Nikolai Lukachuk, said that over the past 24 hours, as a result of shelling by Russian troops, two people were killed and three were injured.
In the south, the governor of the Nikolaev region, Vitaly Kim, reported: “A man was killed in Dmitrovka as a result of enemy shelling.”
The Russian army denies it is targeting civilian infrastructure or residential areas, while military commanders in Moscow confirm it is targeting Ukrainian targets in the Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions with “precision” strikes.
As for Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which has been at the epicenter of standoffs between Russians and Ukrainians in recent weeks that have led to the shutdown of all its reactors, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced on Saturday that it was reconnected. to the Ukrainian power grid, allowing the reactors to cool down.