President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that it became more difficult for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia after Kyiv realized the scale of atrocities committed by Russian troops in Ukraine, according to Reuters.
“These are war crimes that will be recognized by the world as genocide,” Zelensky said on national television in Bucha, Kyiv Oblast, where the bodies of people tied up and shot at close range were found in the territory occupied by Russian troops. grave and other traces of executions of Ukrainians by Russian troops.
Zelensky, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, was surrounded by Ukrainian servicemen. “It is very difficult to say when you see what they have done here,” he said, adding that the longer the Russian Federation delays negotiations, the worse it will be for it, for the situation and for this war. “We know about thousands of people killed and tortured, cut off limbs, raped women and children killed,” he said.
Kyiv residents evacuated to safer regions have to wait a few more days before returning to the Ukrainian capital, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said. “First, there is a round-the-clock curfew in the Kyiv region. Second, in some cities near Kyiv, the Russian occupiers probably left mines, and there are probably a lot of unexploded ordnance,” Klitschko said.
Returning Ukrainian prisoners of war believe that Russia’s treatment of them while in captivity violated the Geneva Conventions, Ukrainian Ombudsman Lyudmila Denisova said today. She said some former detainees reported being held in basements, denied food and forced to take off their uniforms.
The Geneva Conventions set international standards for the humane treatment of prisoners of war. Russia has not yet responded to Denisova’s words.