WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden called Monday for a war crimes trial against Russian President Vladimir Putin, condemning him for the atrocities allegedly committed by Russian troops that have been discovered in recent days in Bucha, a suburb of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
"You may remember I got criticized for calling Putin a war criminal,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “Well, the truth of the matter, you saw what happened in Bucha. This warrants — he is a war criminal. But we have to gather the information."
"This guy is brutal and what's happening in Bucha is outrageous, and everyone's seen it," Biden said, referring to Putin as Biden returned to Washington after a weekend in his home state of Delaware. "Yes, I'm going to continue to add sanctions."
The bodies of 410 civilians have been removed from Kyiv-area towns that were recently retaken from Russian forces, Ukraine’s prosecutor-general, Iryna Venediktova, said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted Monday that the European Union will send investigators to Ukraine to help her “document war crimes.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited war-devastated Bucha on Monday, telling his people on national television it is now harder to negotiate an end to the war with Russia as the atrocities committed by Moscow’s troops become more apparent.
With evidence of civilians tied together and shot at close range, a mass grave and bodies strewn on the streets of Bucha, Zelenskyy declared, “These are war crimes and will be recognized by the world as genocide.”
Moscow has denied accusations of killing civilians in Bucha, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov characterizing the scenes outside Kyiv as a "stage-managed anti-Russian provocation."
Zelenskyy, wearing body armor and surrounded by military personnel in his first reported trip outside Kyiv since the Feb. 24 Russian invasion, said, "It's very difficult to talk when you see what they've done here. The longer the Russian Federation drags out the meeting process, the worse it is for them and for this situation and for this war."
"We know of thousands of people killed and tortured, with severed limbs, raped women and murdered children," he said.
The scenes of the devastation in Bucha and other Kyiv suburbs since Russian troops pulled out in recent days to concentrate their attacks on Ukrainian cities near the Black Sea and in the contested Donbas region of eastern Ukraine have galvanized condemnation of Moscow.
Western leaders are raising the possibility of further economic sanctions on Russia, including restrictions on energy imports. Europe, however, relies heavily on the purchase of several types of Russian energy, leaving the Western allies at odds as to the extent and timing of any cutback.
Europe gets 40% of its natural gas and 25% of its oil from Russia, with European governments trying to find ways to reduce that reliance without curbing economic growth. Over the weekend, Lithuania announced it cut itself off entirely from gas imports from Russia.
German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, who is also the country’s economy minister, said Europe can go "significantly further" in imposing sanctions against Russia. He said Germany, which has faced opposition for taking a longer-term approach to abandoning Russian energy imports, hopes to end Russian coal imports this summer and oil imports by the end of the year.
"We are working every day on creating the conditions for and steps toward an embargo," Habeck said. "We are on the right track."
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki assailed the French and German leaders by name for not doing more against Russia, while calling for actions "that will finally break Putin's war machine."
"President (Emmanuel) Macron, how many times have you negotiated with Putin? What have you achieved? ... Would you negotiate with Hitler, with Stalin, with Pol Pot?" Morawiecki asked. "Chancellor Scholz, Olaf, it is not the voices of German businesses that should be heard aloud in Berlin today. It is the voice of these innocent women and children."
He said, “The bloody massacres perpetrated by Russian soldiers deserve to be called by name: This is genocide."
Some information in this report came from Reuters and the Associated Press.