The flow of “bloody money” to Russia must stop, Kyiv’s mayor said on Tuesday as the West prepared new sanctions on Moscow after dead civilians were found lining the streets of a Ukrainian town seized from Russian invaders.
Since Russian forces withdrew from northern Ukraine, turning their assault on the south and east, grim images from the town of Bucha near Kyiv, including a mass grave and bound bodies of people shot at close range, have prompted international outrage.
Russia denies targeting civilians and said the deaths had been staged by the West to discredit it.
Sanctions already imposed have isolated Russia’s economy but its gas is still flowing to Europe and a number of international companies continue to do business there, leading Ukraine to say more is needed to starve Moscow’s war effort.
“Every euro, every cent that you receive from Russia or that you send to Russia has blood, it is bloody money and the blood of this money is Ukrainian blood, the blood of Ukrainian people,” Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko, dressed in military clothes, told a mayors’ conference in Geneva via video link.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that while what happened in Bucha was unforgivable, Ukraine had no choice but to negotiate with Russia to end the war, now in its sixth week.
“All of us, including myself, will perceive even the possibility of negotiations as a challenge,” Zelenskiy said in an interview broadcast on national television. He said it was not clear whether he and Russian President Vladimir Putin would speak directly.
Russian news agency Interfax cited a deputy Russian foreign minister as saying talks, which last convened on Friday, were continuing via video link. There was no update from the Ukrainian side.
Zelenskiy said earlier that at least 300 civilians had been killed in Bucha and that many more dead were likely to be found in other areas. He said he would address the United Nations Security Council later in the day as he builds support for an investigation into the killings.
Russia denied that its forces had carried out any atrocities and said it would present “empirical evidence” to the U.N. Security Council meeting proving its forces were not involved.
But satellite images of Bucha taken weeks ago showed bodies of civilians on a street, a private U.S. company said, undercutting Russian claims that the scene was staged.
Maxar Technologies provided nine images taken of Bucha on March 18, 19 and 31 to Reuters. At least four of the images appear to show bodies on Yablonska Street in the town, which was occupied by Russian forces until about March 30.
U.S. President Joe Biden called for a war crimes trial against Putin and Washington will ask the U.N. General Assembly to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council. REUTERS
