Russia Ukraine War Day In Photos

Flowers lay on a Ukrainian military armored fighting vehicle destroyed during fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Friday. Vadim Ghirda/Associated Press

The United States and European countries are threatening to impose more financial and political consequences on Russia in response to scenes of horror emerging as Ukraine recaptures more territory near the capital. As Russian troops pull out of northern areas in apparent efforts to refocus on Ukraine’s south and east, the scope of devastation is coming into grim focus and sparking a global call for war-crime probes – fueled by the discovery of alleged mass graves and images of dead civilians lining the streets in the Kyiv suburb Bucha.

The Biden administration is discussing new sanctions as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who will visit Brussels this week, vowed to use “every tool available” to pursue and hold those responsible accountable for the “apparent atrocities by Kremlin forces.”

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Monday she would seek to expel Russia from the body’s Human Rights Council as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russian forces “butchers, rapists and looters” who committed genocide. Ukraine’s prosecutor general said a task force has found the bodies of more than 400 civilians in the Kyiv region.

APTOPIX Russia Ukraine War

Internally displaced people from Mariupol and nearby towns arrive in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Friday, April 1, 2022. AP Photo/Felipe Dana

In southern Ukraine, missile strikes were reported in the port city of Mykolaiv – with the governor detailing some 2,000 buildings damaged including homes, hospitals and other health facilities. A Ukrainian official said members of a team from the Red Cross tasked with escorting evacuation buses to the battered port city of Mariupol were detained Sunday after failing to reach the city for several days, and that Kyiv is working to secure their release. The Red Cross told The Washington Post via email on Monday that “due to security conditions, our team has not been able to reach Mariupol today.”

Also Monday:

The Ukrainian military reported that several villages in the northern Chernihiv region had been cleared – though its mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko said 70 percent of the city had been destroyed. The governor of the neighboring Sumy region said Monday that Russian forces no longer occupied any settlements there, though he warned some soldiers remained and more could return “at any moment.”

Russian officials denied harming civilians in Bucha and attempted to discredit extensive reporting documenting a strike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol. The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to discuss the situation in Ukraine on Tuesday – but will not meet Monday on Russia’s request to rebut allegations that its troops committed atrocities near Kyiv.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to do “everything in my power to starve Putin’s war machine” as the country’s chief of intelligence called “reports of execution-style killings of civilians emerging from liberated areas” of Ukraine “horrifying and chilling.”


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