'Russia Must Answer To The World': Global Condemnation Of Ukraine Killings Mounts

KYIV -- The international community continues to express shock and outrage following the emergence of evidence that Russian forces appear to have committed atrocities against civilians in Ukraine as Moscow dismissed the reports as a “provocation.”

“The reports of Ukrainian civilians who have been killed, raped, and severely wounded by Russian troops are beyond reprehensible,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters in Wellington on April 4.

“Russia must answer to the world for what they’ve done,” she added, saying that her government would discuss additional measures to support Ukraine in its struggle against the Russian invasion.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida described the reported incidents as “violations of international law.”

The statements came after the emergence of reports that hundreds of civilians had been shot and dumped in mass graves or left on the streets in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha by Russian forces withdrawing from the area after controlling it for several weeks.

Photographs showing the bodies of dead civilians with their hands bound shocked many and prompted calls for stepped-up sanctions against Russia and the criminal prosecution of the perpetrators.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in a radio interview on April 4 that there are indications Russian forces committed “war crimes” in Bucha.

“What happened in Bucha demands a new round of sanctions and very clear measures,” Macron said, adding that additional sanctions should target Russian exports of coal and oil.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the same day that Russian forces may have gone as far as committing “genocide” in Bucha.

“We will do everything to ensure that those who have perpetrated these war crimes do not go unpunished,” Sanchez said in Madrid.

Speaking on state television late on April 3, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova rejected the allegations as a “provocation.” She said, without evidence, that the United States and NATO had “ordered” the images to discredit Russia.

“In this case, it seems to me that the fact that these statements were made in the first minutes after these materials appeared leaves no doubt as to who ‘ordered’ this story,” Zakharova said.

Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry also claimed without evidence that the Bucha images were “another staged performance by the Kyiv regime” and that all Russian forces had left the town by March 30.

Moscow has asked the UN Security Council to convene on April 4 to discuss what it called “the provocation by Ukrainian radicals” in Bucha.

The Russian Investigative Committee on April 4 issued a statement announcing an “investigation” into the accusation that Ukraine had spread “deliberately false information” about the actions of Russian forces in Bucha.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy lashed out on April 3, accusing Russian forces of committing “genocide” in the town and told Kremlin leaders they should come to Bucha to see what their military had done.

"I want all the leaders of the Russian Federation to see how their orders are being fulfilled," Zelenskiy said in a video address, switching from Ukrainian to Russian.

"These kinds of orders. This kind of fulfillment. And there is a common responsibility. For these killings, for this torture, for arms blown off by blasts...for the shots in the back of the head," he said.

He said that Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian military must be held responsible for the actions of the country's troops in Ukraine.

"When we find people with their hands tied behind their backs and beheaded, I don't understand," he said of the scenes of victims strewn on the streets of Bucha, a town about 35 kilometers northwest of the capital, Kyiv.

AP journalists saw the bodies of at least 21 people in various spots around Bucha. The bodies of one group of nine people -- all in civilian clothes -- were scattered on the ground near a site that local residents said Russian forces had used as a base. The victims appeared to have been killed at close range.

In all, Ukrainian authorities have said the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in the area around Kyiv that was controlled by Russia forces until last week.