Russia denies Zelensky's violence claims
3 Min Read
After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russian troops "murderers, torturers, rapists, looters," Russia's MoD pushes back saying"not a single local resident" in Bucha suffered violence.
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Zelensky appeared in a taped message at the Grammys.
Local authorities claimed they were forced to dig communal graves to bury bodies found near Kiev, accumulating in the streets.
Russian authorities condemned and denied the accusations, which Western leaders, NATO, and the UN were quick to condemn.
Zelensky called Russian troops "murderers, torturers, rapists, looters, who call themselves the army and who deserve only death after what they did."
Speaking in Russian, he continued, "I want every mother of every Russian soldier to see the bodies of the killed people in Bucha, in Irpin, in Hostomel."
'Falsifying images...no violence in Bucha'
In response, Russia's MoD pushed back, saying, "not a single local resident" in Bucha suffered violence.
Instead, it accused Kiev of bombarding its southern suburbs and falsifying images of corpses in "another production" for Western media.
Moscow's deputy ambassador to the UN said Russia had requested a UN Security Council meeting on Monday "in light of heinous provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha."
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said new sanctions would be decided "in the coming days."
Read more: EU sanctions on Russia not working: Polish PM
"(Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin and his supporters will feel the consequences," he said, as his Defense Minister raised the possibility of an end to gas imports.
Other European officials, including Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, said the EU "must respond strongly with tougher sanctions", while Zelensky said, "there will definitely be a new package of sanctions against Russia."
"Russian troops still control the occupied areas of other regions, and after the expulsion of the occupiers, even worse things could be found there, even more deaths and tortures," he said.
He also appeared in a taped message at the Grammys, urging people to "tell the truth about this war... support us in any way you can, any, but not silence".
'Something terrible is coming'
The UN's top humanitarian envoy Martin Griffiths is expected in Kiev after arriving in Moscow Sunday in an attempt to halt the war.
Peace talks are scheduled to resume by video on Monday, though Russia's chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said it was too early for a top-level meeting between Zelensky and Putin.
Ukraine has proposed abandoning its aspirations to join NATO and declaring official neutrality if it obtains security guarantees from Western countries, which Zelensky said he has not obtained from any country yet, including the US.
It has proposed temporarily shelving the question of Crimea and the territories in the Donbass region that Russia has recognized as independent.
