Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pledged on Friday to defeat "Russian evil" and promised a "new Nuremberg" on the first anniversary of the Russian withdrawal from Boutcha, a martyred city that has become a crying symbol of "atrocities" attributed to troops of Moscow in thirteen months of murderous offensive.
For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree validating a new foreign policy doctrine, which according to his head of diplomacy Sergei Lavrov underlines "the existential nature of Western threats" aimed at Russia.
Human rights violations have become "scandalously routine" in Ukraine, denounced from Geneva the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk.
French President Emmanuel Macron went further, accusing Russian leaders of having "allowed, even encouraged" the war crimes that have been "systematized" in Ukraine.
“We will never forgive,” Volodymyr Zelensky swore to Boutcha. "There will be a new Nuremberg," he said again in a video published in the evening, in reference to the German city which hosted the trials of Nazi leaders in 1945-46.
The Boutcha massacre was not an isolated case but "systemic genocidal violence which constitutes the heart of Russian actions on all occupied Ukrainian territories", accused the Ukrainian president.
"We must do everything to make Boutcha a symbol of justice," he said. "We want every murderer, every executioner, every Russian terrorist to be held responsible for every crime against our people", he added, before the Croatian Prime Ministers Andrej Plenkovic, Slovak Eduard Heger, Slovenian Robert Golob, and the Moldovan President Maia Sandu.
"We are going to win for sure, the Russian Evil will fall, right here in Ukraine and will not be able to get up again", he hammered.
Ukraine estimates that more than 1,400 civilians died in the Boutcha district during the Russian occupation, including 37 children. Among them, 637 were killed in the city itself.
On March 31, 2022, the Russian army withdrew from the Kiev region, just over a month after launching the invasion of the country on the orders of President Vladimir Putin. Two days after the withdrawal, the massacre was known.
AFP journalists discovered in Boutcha on April 2 charred carcasses of vehicles, destroyed houses and above all, scattered over several hundred meters, the corpses of twenty men in civilian clothes, one of whom had his hands tied in the back.
These scenes shocked the whole world, kyiv and Westerners denouncing summary executions of civilians. The Kremlin denies any involvement and speaks of a staging.
"Russian aggression has led to a systematization of war crimes against Ukraine and against its population," Emmanuel Macron said in a video message broadcast to Boutcha. "And far from sanctioning these crimes contrary to all the laws of war, the Russian leaders allowed them to happen, even encouraged them, in defiance of international law and with the clear objective of subjugating the Ukrainian nation through violence", a- he added.
During his visit to the site two days after the discovery, President Zelensky, visibly upset, denounced "war crimes" which will be "recognized by the world as genocide".
AFP journalists noted Thursday reconstruction work in this city which had 37,000 inhabitants before the war.
Several dozen workers were busy in the middle of diggers, backhoes and dump trucks, to rebuild the houses and redo the road.
We must "continue to live" despite the trauma, residents told AFP.
"We must not only win, defeat the occupiers (...) The criminals must be condemned, evil must be punished," said Archpriest Andriï, who manages the local Orthodox parish.
Russian forces have been accused of multiple abuses by Ukrainian authorities after the discovery of hundreds of bodies in Boutcha and other towns, graves near Izium (east) or "torture rooms" in recaptured towns, according to Kyiv.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin in March for the "deportation" of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The Russian president, who did not react to these accusations, adopted a new diplomatic doctrine on Friday which, according to his head of diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, takes note of the "existential nature of Western threats".
"The provisions of the doctrine provide for systematic and, if necessary, severe suppression of anti-Russian measures by unfriendly countries," Lavrov said.
In the immediate future, it is an American journalist from the Wall Street Journal whom the Russian FSB announced on Thursday that it had arrested in the Urals, accusing him of espionage. This unprecedented case in the recent history of the country, in a context of growing repression and increasingly frontal confrontation with Westerners, has given rise to numerous protests and the "concern" of the United States, which has called on its citizens to leave Russia.
Belarus, a neighboring country of Ukraine where Vladimir Putin has just announced that he is preparing to install tactical nuclear missiles, has also further increased the tension by proposing on Friday to also welcome Russian strategic nuclear weapons.
"Because of the United States and its satellites, an all-out war has been unleashed," said Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
On the front, the fighting is still raging above all in the East, around Bakhmout, which the Russians have been trying to take for months at the cost of colossal losses. The Ukrainian presidency said that Russian bombardments on the town of Avdiivka, in the same area, had killed two people, including an infant on Friday.
Kiev admitted on Thursday that it now controls only a third of Bakhmut, but hopes the damage inflicted on Moscow's forces will weaken Russian lines when the Ukrainian army launches the counter-offensive it is preparing, awaiting new weapons. Western.
03/31/2023 22:18:54 - Boutcha (Ukraine) (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
