Monday, November 18

Ukraine: Zelensky says destruction in Borodianka is “much more horrible” than in nearby Bucha

Edificios destruidos por bombardeos rusos en la ciudad ucraniana de Borodianka.
Buildings destroyed by Russian bombing in the Ukrainian city of Borodianka.

Photo: NICOLAS GARCIA / AFP / Getty Images

The destruction of the city of Borodianka is “much more horrible” than what was discovered in the nearby town of Bucha.

This is how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described it in his most recent message to the nation on Thursday night.

“ They began to search among the ruins in Borodianka,” Zelensky said in his speech from kyiv.

“It’s much more horrible there. There are even more victims of the Russian occupiers“, he pointed out.

Both Bucha like Borodianka are suburbs of kyiv and witnessed fierce fighting in the battle for the capital.

Twenty-six bodies were recovered from under the rubble of two destroyed apartment buildings in Borodianka, according to Ukraine’s general prosecutor.

Iryna Venediktova accused Moscow in a Facebook post of deliberately attack civilian areas .

“There is no military site here,” he said, adding that Russian forces “bombed residential infrastructure at night, when there were the most people at home.”

Una residente local abraza a su primo, con quien no mantuvo contacto durante algunas semanas, el 7 de abril de 2022 en Borodianka, Ucrania.
A local resident hugs her cousin, with whom she had no contact for weeks, on April 7, 2022 in Borodianka, Ukraine.

Venediktova af He confirmed that there was “evidence of war crimes by Russian forces at all times”.

Until Tuesday the bodies of had been found civilians in the vicinity of kyiv, according to the Ukrainian authorities.

Two or three days after Russia started the 15 February an invasion of its neighbor, a column of Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers that arrived to the village of Bucha, on the way to kyiv, was attacked by Ukrainians. This put a stop to their advance.

The Russians gathered more forces and stayed in the area outside the capital, unable to advance. a lot, until they began to withdraw on 04 from March to focus on the war in eastern Ukraine.

Many civilians fled, but some remained behind, trying to avoid the Russian forces.

It is in this period in which, allegedly, the Russians began to go house to house.

Los equipos de rescate retiran los escombros del área residencial el 7 de abril de 2022 en Borodianka, Ucrania.

Witnesses described how Russian soldiers shot men trying to flee, after being denied the chance to do so through humanitarian corridors.

Russia maintains, without evidence, that the photos and videos in which the bodies of civilians appear are “a prepared representation” by Ukraine.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said on Tuesday that while Bucha was under Russian control “not a single civilian suffered any kind of violence.”

Russia was suspended from the UN Human Rights Council this Thursday for “serious and systematic violations and abuses” committed during the invasion of Ukraine.

Western countries have expressed their horror at the images of bodies scattered on the streets of cities Ukrainian.


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