Biden calls for Putin war crimes trial over civilian killings

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has promised to zealously pursue allegations of war crimes against Russian forces in occupied regions of the country.

Speaking during his nightly address to the Ukrainian people, Zelensky said investigators would do their upmost to identify the perpetrators of alleged atrocities.

"We are already doing everything possible to identify all the Russian military involved in these crimes as soon as possible," he said.

"This will be a joint work of our state with the European Union and international institutions, in particular with the International Criminal Court."

"All crimes of the occupiers are documented. The necessary procedural basis is provided for bringing the guilty Russian military to justice for every crime they commit."

The Ukrainian leader added that he had discussed the status of the investigations with EU Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen, Polish President Andrzej Duda and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer.

More from Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has been addressing the Ukrainian people from his office in Kyiv.

Zelensky accused Russian forces of killing and torturing more than 300 civilians in the formerly occupied city of Bucha, where evidence of alleged Russian war crimes have been discovered.

The BBC cannot independently verify this claim.

"We have just begun an investigation into all that the occupiers have done," Zelensky said.

"At present, there is information about more than three hundred people killed and tortured in Bucha alone. It is likely that the list of victims will be much larger when the whole city is checked. And this is only one city."

"There is already information that the number of victims of the occupiers may be even higher in Borodyanka and some other liberated cities," he went on.

"In many villages of the liberated districts of the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the occupiers did things that the locals had not seen even during the Nazi occupation 80 years ago. The occupiers will definitely bear responsibility for this."

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will address an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday.

Speaking during his nightly address to the Ukrainian people, Zelensky said it is in Kyiv's interest to have an open and transparent investigation into the alleged killing of civilians in Bucha.

"I would like to emphasise that we are interested in the most complete, transparent investigation, the results of which will be known and explained to the entire international community," Zelensky said.

Airbnb has completed its cancellation of operations in Russia and Belarus.

The policy was announced on 3 March, preventing new reservations in the two countries from that point forward, though the home rental company allowed a month for reservations that had already been booked.

Travellers located in Russia and Belarus are unable to book stays at other Airbnb listings.

The policy was first announced after Russian shelling sparked a fire at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzhia.

Belarus has served as a staging post for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

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US authorities say they have seized a yacht belonging to Viktor Vekselberg, an ally of Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

According to a warrant, the Ukrainian-born oligarch violated 2018 sanctions placed on him by the US. He was again sanctioned last month after Russia's invasion.

The 78-meter (255ft) luxury vessel named Tango and valued at $90m (£70m) was held in a raid by Spanish police on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, following a US request.

The action was the first from the newly-created US Justice Department initiative dubbed Task Force KleptoCapture, which was created to punish Russian oligarchs for violating US sanctions.

Officials allege Vekselberg continued to make payments through US banks for the support and maintenance of the Tango.

"Today marks our task force’s first seizure of an asset belonging to a sanctioned individual with close ties to the Russian regime. It will not be the last,” said US Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Civilians who fled Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, to safer regions should wait several more days before returning, the city's mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, has said, according to Reuters.

"Firstly, there is currently a round-the-clock curfew in the Kyiv region," he was quoted as saying.

"Secondly, in certain towns near Kyiv, it's likely that Russian occupiers left landmines, and there are [likely] a lot of unexploded munitions."

Earlier, we reported that Klitschko branded the killings near the Ukrainian capital as horror scenes.

Authorities in the Brovary, Bucha and Vyshhorod districts of the wider Kyiv region have also said that a curfew will remain in place until April 7, Ukrainian media report.

They said that Ukrainian forces would spend the coming days clearing the area of "explosive 'surprises' left behind by the invaders".

The Ukrainian intelligence service has published what it​ claims is a list of Russian personnel "who committed war crimes against the people of Ukraine in Bucha".

The list, published on the website of the Ministry of Defense, included the names, dates of birth, passport numbers and ranks of about 2,000 servicemen.

A message read: "Remember! All war criminals will be brought to justice for crimes committed against the civilian population of Ukraine."

It comes after senior government sources told the BBC that the UK government is considering action to target captains, majors, and colonels in the Russian military.

The measures could include sanctions as well as ways to hold individuals legally accountable for​ any crimes committed in Ukraine.

Russia’s ambassador to UN has insisted no civilians were harmed during the month-long Russian occupation of the Ukrainian town of Bucha - and accused Ukraine of fabricating evidence.

As we've been reporting, the bodies of dozens of civilians as well as a mass grave have been found following the withdrawal of Russian troops.

But, speaking at a press conference in New York, Vasily Nebenzia said it was "staged provocation" by Western countries.

He also accused the UK of "unprecedented abuse" in its role this month as president of the UN Security Council, said it was refusing to allow Russia to bring the Bucha incidents up.

The BBC has verified footage in Bucha in recent days and found the bodies in the streets would have been there for a number of days, and while the town was under Russian control.

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.

She also saw a shallow grave in the village of Motyzhyn - west of Kyiv - that contained the bodies of four people allegedly shot dead by Russian forces.

A weekend of appalling images and harrowing stories has triggered a fresh wave of international outrage, and, inevitably, talk of more sanctions.

No concrete announcements yet, but Joe Biden said those were coming and that he’d been right, in mid-March, to condemn Vladimir Putin in the harshest terms.

War crimes trials may have to wait, but leaders agree new sanctions are needed. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has called for more measures to target Russian oil and coal.

Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said Mr Putin and his supporters would, in his words, “feel the consequences” of what happened in Bucha. The economy minister, Robert Habeck, said Germany was working towards an embargo on Russian energy, but that it couldn’t happen immediately.

The small Baltic republic of Lithuania is leading the way. After years of reducing its heavy reliance on Russian gas, its government announced, on Sunday, that imports had finally been reduced to zero. "If we can do it," the country’s president said, "the rest of Europe can too".

The UK's foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said tough new sanctions will be announced at a meeting of G7 foreign ministers later this week.

After meeting her Ukrainian counterpart in Warsaw, she said these would include banning Russian ships from western ports, cracking down further on Russian banks and going after new industries which she said were filling Mr Putin’s war chest, including gold.

Since the withdrawal of Russian troops from Bucha, horrific images of bodies lying in the streets and accounts of killings have emerged.

The reports have sparked widespread condemnation and the United Nations has called for an independent investigation into what happened in the town.

Ukraine accused Russia of a "deliberate massacre" but Russia called it "a staged provocation by the Kyiv regime".

It made a series of unfounded claims about the footage from Bucha, including that people shown are not actually dead and that no civilians in Bucha were harmed.

The BBC has fact checked the claims. Read the full report here.

The US State Department says the US is supporting a multi-national team of international prosecutors going to the region to collect, preserve and analyse evidence, at the request of Ukrainian officials.

The aim is to pursue criminal accountability against Russia, a spokesperson for the State Department said.

"Those responsible for atrocities must be held accountable as must those who ordered them.

"They cannot and will not act with impunity."

They said the US is tracking and documenting atrocities and sharing information with institutions working to hold responsible those accountable.

France is the latest country to decide to expel Russian diplomatic staff, after its foreign ministry announced it was expelling many Russian diplomats.

"Their actions go against our national security interests," the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

"This move is part of a European initiative."

The French news agency AFP quoted a source close to the Foreign Ministry as saying 35 people would be expelled.

It follows a similar decision taken by Germany which expelled 40 Russian envoys over the killings of civilians in Bucha, near Ukraine's capital Kyiv.

The killings in Bucha should be a "game changer" for the support the West is willing to provide Ukraine, the country's foreign minister has said.

Speaking to the BBC's Hardtalk programme, Dmytro Kuleba said: "The Bucha massacre should remove any kind of hesitation and reluctance in the West to provide Ukraine with all necessary weapons... to defend our country and to free it from the Russian occupants."

He said additional support should include planes, tanks, multiple launch rocket systems, and armoured vehicles as well as a strengthening of sanctions against Russia.

Kuleba added that the outcome of the war would be decided not only on the battleground, but in the "offices in Europe and North America" where decisions about the level of additional support will be taken.

"I'm ready to exchange every word of sympathy and admiration for a tank or a plane that will help me, or or an embargo on gas and oil that will help me to save human lives in Ukraine," he said.

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More now from the joint press conference this afternoon between UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba.

In addition to calling for a "tough new wave of sanctions" from the UK and its allies to stop Putin's war efforts, Truss backed Kuleba's call for Russia to be expelled from the European Human Rights Council after "appalling crimes" including the killing of civilians in Bucha.

Kuleba said any G7 and EU nations countries that "still have doubts" and are continuing to trade with Russia - by buying fossil fuels, for example - should make their minds up by visiting any of the mass graves in Ukraine.

The horrors seen in Bucha are "just the tip of the iceberg" of what war crimes have been committed by Russian forces, Kuleba added.

"I can tell you without exaggeration, but with great sorrow, that the situation in Mariupol is much worse," he said.

Tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped in the south-eastern port city of Mariupol, which has been reduced to rubble by weeks of Russian shelling.

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As we've been reporting, a family who disappeared in their village west of Kyiv last month have been found dead in a shallow grave.

Our correspondent, Yogita Limaye, visited the site, located in a wood near destroyed homes.

Olha Sukhenko, her husband Igor and her son Oleksander are alleged to have been shot dead by Russian soldiers. A fourth body was also found but has not been identified.

Russian forces took Olha - who served as the head of her village of Motyzhyn - and her family from their home on 23 March, an investigation by the Ukrainian chief prosecutor found.

In Olha's last Facebook post before her death, posted in late February after the Russian invasion, she talked about there being "someone else's scum in our village" and warned residents to keep calm and not to leave their houses.

Two days after the family were allegedly disappeared by Russian forces, a woman called Daria appealed on social media for information on their whereabouts, saying they were her "second family" and "helped people to the end".

She said Russian forces had stolen Oleksander's car and were "riding around the village".

After it emerged that the family had been killed, Daria posted an update:

I don't have enough words and strength to describe how I and my whole family feel.

This is a crime - in every sense. All involved will be appear in court.

Referring to Oleksander, she wrote:

Sasha, my Hero. You didn't leave your parents behind. You will forever be in my heart. In our hearts. Heroes don't die.

We've been hearing about the possibility of more sanctions against Russia in response to discoveries of civilian killings in northern Ukraine.

New European sanctions could include measures targeting the Russian energy sector, according to European Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni.

"Nothing is off the table and I think that this is more true now than ever," he said before a meeting with eurozone finance ministers to discuss possible new sanctions.

Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron called for further sanctions targeting Russia's coal and oil exports, telling French media there were “clear indications of war crimes".

He did not mention targeting Russian gas, which accounts for about 40% of the EU's natural gas imports.

We’ve arrived at a refugee staging centre in the city of Zaporizhzhia at the same time as a long convoy of cars.

They’ve driven here across Russian lines from the south. Many have white cloth or scarves tied to the wing-mirrors to stop them being targeted.

One has a makeshift red cross painted on a white piece of paper in the windscreen.

Many are families. One woman is in tears as she tells me of her relief at fleeing to relative safety. Inside a tent, bread, dumplings and hot tea are being handed out.

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There’s a board containing pictures of the missing and appeals for help to reach those stranded in the besieged city of Mariupol.

“Help us to pick up our parents from Mariupol!”, urges one notice, adding an address next to black and white photos of an elderly couple, Natalia and Evgenii. “Son Vladimir is waiting for them."

If you're just joining us, here's the latest as more evidence emerges of atrocities on the ground in Ukraine - and the world reacts:

Civilian killings and fears of worse to come

• 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
• She also saw a shallow grave in the village of Motyzhyn - west of Kyiv - that contained the bodies of four people allegedly shot dead by Russian forces
• But Ukraine's prosecutor general warned the town of Borodyanka would be the worst-hit in the Kyiv region in terms of number of victims
• Ukrainian authorities said the bodies of 410 civilians had been found in the areas around Kyiv so far, although the BBC can't independently verify this figure

International condemnation

• US President Joe Biden called Vladimir Putin to face trial over war crimes in Ukraine
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the town, speaking with residents and accusing Russia of genocide
• UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss pledged a "a tough new wave of sanctions" on Russia
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU was ready to send investigators to document atrocities

• Germany expelled 40 Russian envoys but rejected an embargo on energy imports from the country
• The Kremlin repeated denials that Russian forces have killed civilians

US President Joe Biden has called for Russian President Vladimir Putin to face trial over the killings of civilians in Bucha.

"This guy is brutal," Biden said, adding that he's seeking to bring in more sanctions against the Kremlin.

The US president previously caused outrage in Moscow when he first accused Putin of war crimes last month.

"Well the truth of the matter, you saw what happened in Bucha - he is a war criminal... but we have to gather all the detail so this can have a war crimes trial," Biden said.