Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will address a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday in which he is expected to outline the alleged atrocities committed by Russian soldiers against civilians in the war-torn country.
It will be Zelensky’s first time addressing the global group since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to invade Ukraine seven weeks ago.
Specifically, Zelensky is expected to discuss the discovery of hundreds of bodies in Bucha, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, and predict that worse instances of mass killings will come if Russia is not stopped.
The destruction was so severe in Bucha that it not only drove Zelensky to tears when he visited Monday but triggered global outrage and renewed calls for Putin to be prosecuted for war crimes.
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In his overnight address, Zelensky said more than 300 people had been tortured and killed in Bucha and that the list of victims was likely to grow.
The United States, Britain, and France are expected to use the meeting to present evidence of atrocities that several world leaders, including President Joe Biden, have described as “war crimes.”
Despite mounting evidence against Moscow, it’s unlikely that the U.N. Security Council will agree on any measures to punish Putin because Russia and its ally China both hold veto power.
Moscow has strongly pushed back on claims that it targeted or killed any civilians, and it has gone so far as to accuse the West of doctoring evidence in an effort to make Russia look bad.
Ahead of the meeting, Russia said it would present “empirical evidence” that it was not involved in wartime atrocities.
France’s national counterterrorism prosecutor’s office said Tuesday it had opened three investigations into war crimes committed against French citizens in Chernihiv, Gostomel, and Mariupol, the besieged port city that has seen some of the worst fighting since the war broke out. The war crimes allegedly took place between Feb. 24 and March 16.
France’s neighbor to the east, Italy, expelled 30 Russian diplomats working in Rome on Tuesday.
The country’s foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, called the removals “necessary” to protect national security, “in agreement with other European and Atlantic partners” following the “unjustified aggression against Ukraine on the part of the Russian federation.”
The move prompted Moscow to vow retaliation.
“Russia will make an appropriate response,” Maria Zakharova, the foreign ministry’s spokeswoman, said.
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Germany, France, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden also expelled diplomats following the Bucha killings.
Since the invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24, more than 11 million have fled their homes, the U.N. migration agency said Tuesday in its first full assessment in three weeks. About 7.1 million have been displaced within Ukraine since Friday. The International Organization for Migration said more than 2.9 million others are considering “leaving their place of habitual residence due to war.” That figure follows an assessment by the U.N. refugee agency that reportedly 4 million people had fled abroad.
The prime minister of Moldova said Tuesday that the country needs major international support to handle the influx of Ukrainian refugees.
Natalia Gavrilita said Moldova, which has a population of 2.5 million, has tried to provide refugees with decent conditions made possible through the public and private sectors, but she said that “coping with this influx is one of the biggest challenges any Moldovan government has faced over the last three decades.”
In Ukraine, Russian forces stepped up their bombardment of several cities.
The country’s General Staff reported Tuesday that Russian forces were regrouping and preparing to attack Donbas.
“The goal is to establish full control over the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” according to an update posted on the General Staff’s Facebook page.
Russian forces are also focusing their efforts on taking full control of the besieged port city of Mariupol. Russian troops are also trying to block Kharkiv.
A tank holding nitric acid was hit by a Russian strike in Rubizhne, a city in the Luhansk region in the eastern part of the country.
Gov. Serhiy Haidai told residents to stay inside and close their windows and doors to avoid chemical burns. He also advised people to wear masks.
“This is a rather toxic substance,” he said in a Facebook page video. “We don’t know where this toxic cloud will go.”
Images shared on social media seemed to show a plume of yellowish-brown smoke rising from a column purported to be from Rubizhne.
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And in the southern city of Mykolaiv, 10 people were killed, and 46 others were wounded in strikes, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said.
