Ukraine war: Zelensky says ‘even more victims’ of Russian troops in Borodyanka, calls for tougher sanctions

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says there are more victims of atrocities in the small town of Borodyanka. As clean-up efforts were under way and rescuers removed rubble from the town north west of Kyiv, Zelensky said the situation was “far more horrific” than in Bucha. There are “even more victims” of Russian troops there, he said in a Thursday night video message, without giving more concrete details. Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky said earlier that Borodyanka was one of the most badly destroyed towns in the Kyiv region. According to Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office, the town has the highest number of casualties in the Kyiv region. So far, authorities have not given any specific figures for the area. Ukrainian civil defence teams have been looking for survivors and the dead since Wednesday. Zelensky thanked diplomats who have returned to Kyiv and restarted their work there, saying it was a clear signal to Moscow that Kyiv is the Ukrainian capital and “not a Russian province.” The Turkish and Slovenian embassies have started work there again, he said, and the Lithuanian ambassador returned on Thursday. Zelensky also called for tougher sanctions and more weapons for the battle against Russia, which attacked its neighbour more than a month ago. The international sanctions that have been imposed so far are not yet sufficient to stop Russia and end the war, Zelensky said in his daily video message, which was published on Telegram late Thursday. “More sanctions are needed. Tougher sanctions are needed,” he said. At the same time Zelensky demanded weapons for his country “with which we can win on the battlefield.” These would be the strongest sanctions against Russia, he said. Zelensky said his country’s armed forces were doing everything possible to repel the Russian offensive in Donbas. He said the Ukrainian government was analysing every step and would respond. Zelensky called the suspension of Russia’s membership of the United Nations Human Rights Council “quite logical” and “absolutely fair.” The move came in response to reports of Russian human rights violations in the Ukraine war. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba warned on Thursday that despite a recent Russian pullback, the country remains vulnerable, and he pleaded for weapons from Nato to face down the coming offensive in the east. Nations from the alliance agreed to increase their supply of arms, spurred on by reports that Russian forces committed atrocities in areas surrounding the capital. Woman raped by Russian soldiers says ‘I don’t want to live’ Western allies also ramped up financial penalties aimed at Moscow, including a ban by the European Union on Russian coal imports and a US move to suspend normal trade relations with Russia. Kuleba encouraged Western countries to continue bearing down on Russia, suggesting that any letup will result in more suffering for Ukrainians. “How many Buchas have to take place for you to impose sanctions?” Kuleba asked reporters, referring to a town near Kyiv where Associated Press journalists counted dozens of bodies, some burned, others apparently shot at close range or with their hands bound. “How many children, women, men, have to die – innocent lives have to be lost – for you to understand that you cannot allow sanctions fatigue, as we cannot allow fighting fatigue?” Ukrainian officials said earlier this week that the bodies of 410 civilians were found in towns around the capital city. Volunteers have spent days collecting the corpses, and more were picked up Thursday in Bucha. Ukrainian and several Western leaders have blamed the massacres on Moscow’s troops, and the weekly Der Spiegel reported on Thursday that Germany’s foreign intelligence agency had intercepted radio messages between Russian soldiers discussing the killings of civilians. Russia has falsely claimed that the scenes in Bucha were staged. Kuleba became emotional while referring to the horrors in the town, telling reporters that they could not understand “how it feels after seeing pictures from Bucha, talking to people who escaped, knowing that the person you know was raped four days in a row.” His comments came in response to a reporter’s question about a video allegedly showing Ukrainian soldiers shooting a captured and wounded Russian soldier. He said he had not seen the video and that it would be investigated. He acknowledged that there could be “isolated incidents” of violations. The footage has not been independently verified by the AP. In the 6-week-old war, Russian forces failed to take Ukraine’s capital quickly, denying what Western countries said was Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s initial aim of ousting the Ukrainian government. In the wake of that setback and heavy losses, Russia shifted its focus to the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking, industrial region in eastern Ukraine where Moscow-backed rebels have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces are in control of the entire northeast region of Sumy along the border with Russia, its Governor said on Friday, warning residents against returning while it was being cleared of mines. “The area is free of orcs,” Sumy regional Governor Dmytro Zhyvytsky said on social media, referring to invading Russian troops. “The region is not safe. There are many areas that have been mined and are still not cleared,” he said. Civilians in eastern Ukraine struggled to evacuate Friday as Russia redirects its firepower, with President Volodymyr Zelensky warning of “even more horrific” devastation being uncovered around the capital. More than a month into President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has shifted its focus after stiff resistance put paid to hopes of an easy capture of the country. Ukraine pleads for ‘weapons, weapons, weapons’ at talks with Nato Instead, troops are being redeployed towards the east and south, aiming to create a long-sought land link between occupied Crimea and the Moscow-backed separatist statelets of Donetsk and Luhansk in Donbas. “In the north, Russian forces have now fully withdrawn from Ukraine to Belarus and Russia,” Britain’s defence ministry said. “At least some of these forces will be transferred to east Ukraine to fight in the Donbas,” it added, noting that many troops would need “significant replenishment” and a mass redeployment would take at least a week. Heavy shelling has already begun to lay waste to towns in the region, and officials have begged civilians to flee, but the intensity of fighting is starting to hamper evacuations. Luhansk Governor Sergiy Gaiday said Russian shelling had damaged a railway route being used by evacuees in the town of Schastia, north of Luhansk. “The railway was damaged. Train evacuation is in question. Thousands of people are still in the cities of Luhansk region,” he wrote on Facebook. And in Donetsk, the head of the regional military administration Pavlo Kyrylenko said three evacuation trains had been temporarily blocked after a Russian air strike on an overpass by a station. But officials continued to press civilians to leave where possible. “There is no secret – the battle for Donbas will be decisive. What we have already experienced, all this horror, it can multiply,” warned Gaiday. “Leave! The next few days are the last chances. Buses will be waiting for you in the morning,” he added. Additional reporting by Associated Press, Agence France-Presse