Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau, US first lady Jill Biden visit Ukraine
- Canadian prime minister travelled to a suburban town outside Kyiv where evidence has emerged of gruesome atrocities
- US first lady also made a foray into the embattled country, meeting her Ukrainian counterpart near the Slovakian border
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was responsible for “war crimes”, during a visit to Ukraine where he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“It is clear that Vladimir Putin is responsible for heinous war crimes,” Trudeau said at a news conference with the Ukrainian leader on Sunday.
“There must be accountability,” he added, after a G7 meeting including the Ukrainian president.
Earlier in the day, Trudeau visited Irpin outside Kyiv, a city devastated by fierce fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces before its occupation in March by Moscow, the city’s mayor said.
“I witnessed first-hand the brutality of Russia’s illegal war,” he told reporters.
Irpin Mayor Oleksandr Markushyn posted pictures on an official social media channel with pictures of Trudeau writing that he “came to Irpin to see with his own eyes all the horror that the Russian occupiers had done to our city”.
Irpin counted around 60,000 residents before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his attack on Ukraine on February 24.
Ukraine accuses Russian forces of atrocities against civilians – like those in Bucha, a town close to Kyiv – after the discovery of dozens of bodies wearing civilian clothes in areas held then abandoned by the Russian army.
Several Western political leaders including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have recently visited Irpin and other residential areas around the capital Kyiv where Russian forces were accused of killing hundreds of civilians.
Trudeau was joined by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, who together also hoisted the maple leaf flag at Canada’s mission in Kyiv.
Canada “restarted operations in Kyiv today”, Trudeau said.
Trudeau’s visit came on the same day US first lady Jill Biden made an unannounced trip to Ukraine.
Biden spent about two hours inside Ukraine, holding a Mother’s Day meeting with Olena Zelenska, Zelensky’s wife, at a school in the town of Uzhorod, a short drive from the Slovakian border.
Biden, whose trip came amid a four-day visit to front-line states in eastern Europe, said she wanted to make the visit on Mother’s Day to underscore that “this war has been brutal, and that the people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine”.
Zelenska, appearing publicly for the first time since the Russians invaded her nation, thanked Biden for her “courageous act” at a time when “military actions are taking place every day, where air sirens are happening every day”.
After the unannounced trip to Ukraine, Biden returned to Slovakia.
There she had met earlier with refugees, aid workers and residents in the city of Kosice and the village of Vysne Nemecke. In Bratislava she met with US embassy staff and government officials.
Nearly 5.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion, according to the United Nations. More than 360,000 of them have crossed into Slovakia, according to UN figures.
In Romania, too, Biden met with Ukrainian refugees on Saturday and praised them as “amazingly strong”.
“We stand with you, I hope you know that,” she said at a school in Bucharest, accompanied by her Romanian counterpart Carmen Iohannis, according to images transmitted by TVR public television.
More than 810,000 Ukrainians have entered Romania since the start of the war, according to UN figures released April 29.
Agence France-Presse and Tribune News Service
