On leaving Ukraine, she said she saw with her own eyes yesterday, Friday, the destruction of the town of Bucha near Kiev.
A forensic team yesterday began exhumations from a mass grave containing the bodies of civilians who local officials say were killed during the Russian occupation of the town. "My instinct says: If this is not a war crime, what is a war crime, but I have studied medicine and the lawyers have to investigate carefully," von der Leyen told reporters on the train as she left Ukraine.
"I saw the photos, (Ukrainian Prime Minister) Denis Smigal showed them to me: People being killed as they walk. We could also see with our own eyes how the destruction in the city is aimed at human lives. Residential buildings are not a military target," she said, referring to Butcha.
Moscow has denied allegations of war crimes by Ukraine and Western countries and has denied targeting civilians in what the Kremlin calls a "special military operation" to demilitarize and "denazify" the neighboring country.
The Kremlin said Thursday that allegations that Russian forces executed civilians in Butchnya are a "repulsive fabrication" meant to discredit the Russian military. On Friday, on the same day that von der Leyen and Joseph Borel, the EU's diplomacy chief, visited Kiev and its surroundings, Ukraine blamed Russia for a missile attack that killed at least 52 people at the Kramatorsk railway station in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said, according to the RIA news agency, that the missiles said to have hit the Kramatorsk station were used only by the Ukrainian military and that Russia's armed forces had no targets in Kramatorsk on Friday.
von der Leyen said the EU was working with Ukraine on a joint investigation team to gather evidence of possible war crimes to be used in future court cases. It is extremely important [THAT THE CASE] is well documented to prevent defeats in court because the evidence will not be good enough, von der Leyen said.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said last month that an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine had been launched.
Destruction of an ammunition depot
Russian forces destroyed an ammunition depot at the Ukrainian forces' air base in Mirhorod, central Ukraine, the Interfax news agency reported Saturday, citing the Russian Defense Ministry.
The attack also destroyed a MiG-29 fighter of the Ukrainian air forces and a Mi-8 helicopter at this base located in the Poltava region, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
Source: CNA
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Times
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Times
Source
