Baerbock pledges accountability for killings in Bucha
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock pledged Tuesday that the international community would hold to account those responsible for the killing of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha
KATHMANDU, Oct 31: The Nepal Police Provincial Office, Dharan has awarded inspector Sanjay Bucha the Best Police Officer in Province 1.
Marking the 67th Police Day, Bucha was awarded with the title amid an event at Biratnagar for his extraordinary contributions and performances.
Kedar Karki, Minister for the Internal Affairs and Law of Province 1, was the chief guest in the event.
The award was handed over by Senior Superintendent of Police(SSP) Jayaraj Sapkota.
APRIL 17: As the BBC's Anna Foster reports, most people are yet to return, and there's just one small, hardy group who are trying to pave the way for others to come back.
Sergei and his wife arrived at their flat five days ago. Now they and their neighbours are trying to rebuild their damaged homes, and clearing away the debris of countless Russian shells.
"You always want to come back home", he says. "So we used our first chance to return as well. And we used our chance to make sure that all the property is safe, even from locals that might come and steal something."
But making these towns safe again will be a huge job.
Not safe yet
In just a few weeks, Bucha locals have become accustomed to death.
Denys Davidoff stayed in the town throughout the occupation. When the Russians left he ventured back onto the streets, and was confronted with a vision of horror. Many people around the world saw photos and videos of bodies lying scattered on the ground in Bucha, some with hands bound behind their backs. But Denys witnessed them himself.
"When I arrived I saw the street with the dead bodies. I just walked around them, and they were everywhere. I wasn't scared, but it was intense. You got used to it during the month of the occupation."
As the world condemned what it saw, Russia claimed the news was fake, and the bodies were planted after its forces left. But Denys lived through it, and that was not what he saw.
"Some corpses were lying for such a long time that you could see their bodies were covered with the sand and the earth after it rained. At some point I realised I knew some of the people who were killed."
The people of Bucha are still processing the devastation they've lived through. But they aren't entirely safe just yet. More than 3,000 pieces of unexploded ordnance have been found around the Kyiv region so far.
In a nearby village we pass a ditch at the side of the road, with around 20 unexploded shells neatly placed in it, lying side by side. A single thin ribbon of plastic tape runs around the perimeter to protect the unaware from stumbling in.
Making these towns safe again for people to return to will be a huge job.
Explosions in Kyiv and Lviv
Fresh air strikes hit the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Saturday.
One person was killed and several wounded in Kyiv, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Air defences were trying to protect people, Mr Klitschko said on his Telegram channel, "but the enemy is ruthless".
"You forget sometimes that you're still afraid of every sound, even if it comes from your neighbour's house, or if someone bangs a car door... No words can describe how scary it is," local resident Anna Budko told the BBC.
The Russian defence ministry said it was targeting a military factory in the capital.
Explosions were also reported in the western city of Lviv. Officials said air defences destroyed four Russian cruise missiles.
Senior UK ministers banned from Russia
Russia has banned UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other senior ministers from entering Russia over what it described as their "hostile" attitude towards the war in Ukraine.
The others mentioned in the ban include Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Priti Patel.
Moscow said the decision was taken in response to sanctions imposed by the UK since the invasion.
"London's unbridled information and political campaign aimed at isolating Russia internationally, creating conditions for containing our country and strangling the domestic economy" had prompted its decision, it added.
The UK government said it remained resolute in its support for Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden has been subject to a similar ban since March.
The full list is:
-Prime Minister Boris Johnson
-Foreign Secretary Liz Truss
-Defence Secretary Ben Wallace
-Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor, and Secretary of State for Justice Dominic Raab
-Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps
-Home Secretary Priti Patel
-The Chancellor Rishi Sunak
-Minister for Entrepreneurship, Energy and Industrial Strategy Kwasi Kwarteng
-Minister for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Nadine Dorries
-Minister for the Armed Forces James Heappey
-First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon
-Attorney General for England and Wales and advocate general for Northern Ireland Suella Braverman
-Conservative MP and former British Prime Minister Theresa May
First pictures of Moskva crew since sinking
The Russian defence ministry has published images showing what it says is the crew of the warship Moskva - the first time any sailors from the ship have been seen since its sinking.
A large group of sailors is seen on parade in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol, met by Navy Commander-in-Chief Adm Nikolay Yevmenov.
The Moskva was the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet.
The ship's demise has been described as a huge blow to Russian morale.
The video shows Adm Yevmenov and two other officers standing on a parade ground in front of about 100 sailors.
It is not clear when the meeting took place.
With inputs from BBC
This is not where Nadiya Trubchaninova thought she would find herself at 70 years of age, hitchhiking daily from her village to the shattered town of Bucha trying to bring her son’s body home for burial.
APRIL 6: Images of mass graves and bodies of civilians reportedly executed in the Kyiv suburb have shocked the world.
India's condemnation at the UN meeting is the strongest statement it has made since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Delhi has so far abstained from UN votes condemning Russia's actions.
In a statement on Tuesday at the UN Security Council meeting, India's permanent representative to the United Nations TS Tirumurti said the country "remained deeply concerned at the worsening situation and reiterates its call for immediate cessation of violence and end to hostilities".
"The situation in Ukraine has not shown any significant improvement since the Council last discussed the issue. The security situation has only deteriorated, as well as its humanitarian consequences," Mr Tirumurti said.
"We hope the international community will continue to respond positively to the humanitarian needs. We support calls urging for guarantees of safe passage to deliver essential humanitarian and medical supplies."
India has a long history of pursuing a non-aligned foreign policy but is under pressure from Western countries over its diplomatic balancing act. Delhi and Moscow also share a decades-old relationship, and Russia is also India's biggest defence supplier.
India recently also placed contracts for nearly six million barrels of Russian crude after prices slumped in the wake of Western sanctions on Russia. But the Indian government says this is "literally a drop, in a larger bucket" of its oil imports globally.
Russia praises India for stance on Ukraine
Ukraine: India 'feeling the heat' over neutrality
Last week, Delhi was criticised by the US and Australia for considering a Russian offer that was seen as circumventing the sanctions.
The civilian killings in Bucha were uncovered after Russian troops withdrew from the town. The mayor, Anatoli Fedoruk, said on Monday that at least 300 civilians had been killed, but there is no official tally yet.
'Delhi-Moscow ties to be tested'
India's support for an independent inquiry into civilian killings in Bucha is hardly surprising.
It stopped short of blaming or naming Russia for the violence in Bucha, which was in line with its policy of neutrality over Ukraine.
The West has so far appeared to be accommodating of India's stand, which largely stems from its reliance on Russian defence equipment and its historical ties with Moscow.
But as allegations of atrocities in Ukraine mount, so will the pressure on Delhi to take a clearer stand.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday said that Washington wanted Delhi to scale down its defence dependence on Russia. If his statement is a sign of things to come, India's policy of pushing for diplomacy over Ukraine will be seriously tested.
APRIL 5: Bucha and Irpin were symbols of resistance to the Russian invasion, but they are now becoming synonymous with the war's most serious abuses.
Ukrainian authorities say the bodies of 410 civilians have been found in the areas around Kyiv so far.
Russia, without evidence, says the photos and videos are "a staged performance" by Ukraine.
But what officials and reporters have seen there in the wake of the Russian withdrawal has left many in deep shock.
What happened in Bucha?
Two or three days after Russia launched the 24 February invasion of its neighbour, a column of Russian tanks and armoured personnel carriers (APC) that had arrived in Bucha was attacked by Ukrainians, stalling the advance.
The Russians reinforced and stayed in the area on the outskirts of the capital, unable to move forward much, until they began pulling out on 30 March.
Many civilians had fled the area - but some stayed behind, trying to avoid the Russians. It is during this period that Russians reportedly started going house to house.
Witnesses have described how Russian soldiers fired on men fleeing after refusing to allow them to leave through humanitarian corridors.
Officials and reporters who went in after the Russians had left saw tanks and APCs, alongside at least 20 dead men lying in the streets.
Many had extensive wounds - some had been shot through the temple, as if executed. Some had their hands - or legs - tied. Others had clearly been run over by tanks.
Satellite images taken by Maxar show a 14m (45ft) mass grave in Bucha near the church of St Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints.
The company says the first signs of excavation were spotted on 10 March - not long after the launch of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
And Bucha residents have said the first bodies were buried there in the first few days of the war, as Russians killed scores by "shooting everyone they saw". Estimates of those buried range from 150-300.
'Shot in the back of the head'
Human Rights Watch has gathered evidence of alleged war crimes in Bucha and other cities and towns under the control of Russian forces.
In a report published on 3 April 2022, it recorded an account of an incident in Bucha on 4 March in which Russian soldiers forced five men "to kneel on the side of the road, pulled their T-shirts over their heads, and shot one of the men in the back of the head".
And more gruesome details continue to emerge.
The BBC's Yogita Limaye visited the basement of a home in Bucha where the bodies of five men wearing civilian clothes were left. They had their hands bound behind their backs and appeared to have been shot dead.
The Ukrainians say similar accounts are surfacing elsewhere and will be investigated.
In the nearby village of Motyzhyn, a BBC team were taken to see a shallow grave - four bodies were visible, and Ukrainian officials said there could be more.
Three of the bodies have been identified as that of the head of the village Olga Sohnenko, her husband and her son. The fourth has not been identified yet.
It is unclear when they were killed.
The areas around Kyiv now back under Ukrainian control include the commuter town of Irpin, where heart-breaking images showed civilians fleeing under Russian fire for days on end.
There were cases of people being shot at as they did so. On 6 March four civilians - a woman, her teenage son, her daughter of around eight years of age, and a family friend - were all killed by mortar fire as they tried to cross a battered bridge.
In another incident, a mother and son were also killed and buried by neighbours in the courtyard of the block of flats.
On 7 March, drone footage showed a car on a road outside Kyiv, from which a man emerges with hands raised. His body falls to the ground. Maksim Iovenko, 31, was shot dead by Russian forces that were positioned at the roadside. His wife Ksenia, who was in the car, was also killed.
The HRW report includes the case of a mother in the city of Kharkiv, who was raped by a 20-year-old Russian soldier inside a school where civilians were sheltering.
And many more.
Accusations of war crimes and genocide
President Volodymyr Zelensky has no doubt that Russian troops are committing war crimes and even genocide against his people. Genocide is understood by most to be the gravest crime against humanity. It is defined as a mass extermination of a particular group of people - exemplified by the efforts of the Nazis to eradicate the Jewish population in the 1940s.
"The world has already seen many war crimes. At different times. On different continents. But it is time to do everything possible to make the war crimes of the Russian military the last manifestation of such evil on earth," Mr Zelensky said on Sunday, as evidence of the murders of Bucha became public.
He told US network CBS's Face the Nation programme: "Indeed. This is genocide.
"The elimination of the whole nation, and the people. We are the citizens of Ukraine. We have more than 100 nationalities. This is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities."
Many Western countries have expressed their horror at the images of bodies strewn on city streets.
But Russia remains defiant. It says its operation - which they refuse to call a war of invasion - is proceeding according to plan, and that accusations of war crimes are all fake.
With inputs from BBC
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