Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken said Russia’s withdrawal from the Ukrainian towns of Izyum and Bucha revealed horrific torture and killings of Ukrainian civilians that could not be dismissed as the actions of a few bad actors. “Where the Russian tide recedes, we discover the horrors left in its wake,” Blinken said. “We cannot, we will not allow President Putin to get away with it.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied the accusations and accused Ukrainian forces of killing civilians in the eastern Donbass region with “impunity”. He blamed the United States, France and Germany for failing to hold Ukraine accountable for alleged atrocities. “The Kiev regime owes its impunity to its Western sponsors,” he said. The meeting marked only the second meeting between Blinken and Lavrov since Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine. Moscow’s decision to attend the meeting surprised some US officials who had expected Russia to back down on an issue intended to expose and condemn its plans to hold a referendum and annex occupied territories in Ukraine. In singling out Russia as responsible, Blinken was joined by top diplomats representing France, Britain, Norway, Albania and Ireland, as well as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who accused the Kremlin of violating international of law The meeting was attended by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, who said his team would be deployed to Ukraine in the coming days to investigate allegations in the east of the country, where residents of previously Russian-held territory have accused Russian forces of torture, enforced disappearances and rape. Without explicitly blaming Russia, Khan made it clear that the atrocities he witnessed during visits to war-torn parts of Ukraine, including the Kiev suburb of Bucha and the northeastern city of Kharkiv, were real and shocking. “The bodies I saw were not fake,” he said. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonnade said Russia had committed “unspeakable crimes” and that officials who committed, ordered or planned them must be held accountable. Guterres called Moscow’s plan to hold referendums on joining Russia in the occupied territories of Ukraine a “violation of the UN Charter, international law and precedent”. The world’s top diplomat also blamed Russian bombing of urban areas for the deaths of thousands of Ukrainian civilians, including hundreds of children. “Almost every child in Ukraine has been affected by the nightmare of war,” he said. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged both sides to show restraint and stressed the importance of the United Nations remaining impartial in the conflict. India’s top diplomat, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, also avoided blaming either Russia or Ukraine and simply endorsed the war crimes investigations.
