Selenskyj speaks to the UN: “Bucha was not an isolated case”

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has called for an immediate war crimes trial against Russia by the UN Security Council. Meanwhile, the United States is pushing for Moscow’s exclusion from the Human Rights Council.

The pictures that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky brought back from his visit to the visibly shocked members of the Security Council in Bucha were horrific – in words and in video recordings: tortured, mutilated, partly burned children, women, men. Selenskyj swore: The atrocities against residents of the city of Bucha were not isolated cases.

“The world has now seen what Russia did in Bucha, but the world has not yet seen what they did in other occupied cities and regions of our country,” Zelensky said. Russia must be held accountable for the crimes. He called for an immediate war crimes trial against the military. Russian invading forces committed the worst war crimes in Ukraine since World War II.

He wanted to remind Russian diplomats that war criminals like Adolf Eichmann and others had not escaped the Nuremberg trials and their punishments, said the Ukrainian president, who was connected to the most powerful UN body via video link for the first time since the Russian invasion began.

Moscow speaks of “unfounded allegations”

Moscow’s UN ambassador Vasily Nebensja rejected all of this. He spoke of “unfounded allegations” and lies. There are no eyewitnesses to what Zelenskyj claims. The bodies in the photos from Bucha were not there when the Russian military withdrew from the city. There is video evidence of that.

Most of the diplomats in the room see this as a distortion of facts. Russia is attacking Ukrainian civilians and their facilities such as hospitals and schools, said UN ambassador Olof Skoog for all EU countries. “These war crimes must stop immediately. Those responsible will be held accountable under international law,” Skoog said.

Guterres calls for independent investigation

In the context of human rights violations, diplomats considered the Security Council session important because it should help counter Russian distortion of facts. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an independent investigation into the crimes.

Washington’s UN ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield called for further steps: “Day by day we see more and more how little Russia respects human rights. And that’s why the USA and other member states are demanding that Russia be excluded from the United Nations Human Rights Council.”

UN to vote on Russia exclusion

Only the UN General Assembly can decide that. Among other things, at the urging of the United States and Great Britain, the UN member states are to vote this week on whether Russia has to leave the body. It would be the first time that a founding member of the United Nations would be expelled from the Human Rights Council.

For example, the Council can decide to send observers to a member state to monitor the human rights situation. China, in turn, declined to condemn Russia for the Bucha atrocities. Although the reports and images are very disturbing, said UN Ambassador Zhang Jun, the exact circumstances must be clarified.