Zelensky Exhorts Russian Mothers to View Evidence of Sons’ Atrocities

ATHENS — Amid a torrent of reports alleging that Russian forces committed atrocities at Bucha and other Ukrainian towns on the outskirts of Kiev, the Ukrainian president dispensed with all niceties, advising the “mothers of Russian military” to see images of slain civilians his office posted to Instagram and lashing out: “See what bastards you’ve raised. Murderers, looters, butchers.” President Zelensky’s unsparing language — according to some translations, a stronger word than “bastards” was used to describe Russian soldiers — was part of a larger statement that accompanied horrific images of bodies lying in desolate streets and one in which a man’s severed head is positioned a few feet from his corpse, in a pit next to a woman who has also been killed.The brutal acts apparently took place as the town was being liberated by Ukrainian forces. An adviser to the Ukrainian president, Oleksiy Arestovych, said scores of residents were found slain on the streets of Bucha and the Kiev suburbs of Irpin and Hostomel in what looked like a “scene from a horror movie.” Kiev’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, told German newspaper Bild: “What happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kiev can only be described as genocide.”In his nightly video message, Mr. Zelensky also took aim at a former German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and a former French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, inviting them to visit Bucha to “see what the policy of concessions to Russia has led to in 14 years. You will see the tortured Ukrainians with your own eyes.” The “14 years” was a reference to a NATO summit held in April 2008 at Bucharest at which — in the words of NATO — “NATO Allies welcomed Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership and agreed that these countries will become members of NATO.”That summit was also mentioned in the Instagram post with the searing images that was posted Sunday night — and that by Monday morning had already generated more than 76,000 comments. Social media is a force multiplier for outrage of all stripes, but against the backdrop of one harrowing account of Russian brutality after another, Mr. Zelensky’s public documentation of these acts will, if nothing else, add to the global pressure to hold Russia accountable for its alleged war crimes. A communications manager for Human Rights Watch, Birgit Schwarz, tweeted, “The cases we documented amount to unspeakable, deliberate cruelty & violence against Ukrainian civilians. Rape, murder & other violent acts against people in the Russian forces’ custody should be investigated as war crimes.”By Monday morning widespread reports told of Ukrainian soldiers finding 410 massacred civilians in liberated Bucha, with some having been bound and shot. One witness to the slaughter told Britain’s weekend Observer newspaper that a fleeing 33-year-old mother and her sons, aged 8 and 4, and a 62-year-old man were shot dead in two cars by troops in a Russian armored vehicle. These acts apparently took place during what Kiev authorities called the Russians’ “rapid retreat” from territory around the capital, including Bucha, on Saturday.Evidence of Russian atrocities throughout Ukraine is likely to mount in the coming days. Even children have been involved, as reports emerge of Russian forces using them as human shields to avoid taking fire when in retreat, the Observer reported. “Cases of using children as cover are recorded in Sumy, Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts,” Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Lyudmila Denisova, said. That assertion was echoed by the Ukrainian defense ministry spokesman, Colonel Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, according to whom: “Enemies have been using Ukrainian children as a living shield when moving their convoys, moving their vehicles.”

Zelensky Exhorts Russian Mothers to View Evidence of Sons’ Atrocities

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