Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that the Russian military must be brought to justice immediately for war crimes, accusing the Kremlin's troops of the worst atrocities since World War II.
The Ukrainian leader made his plea via video as grisly evidence continued to emerge of civilian massacres carried out by Russian forces on the outskirts of Kyiv before they pulled back away from the capital.
The images, particularly from the town of Bucha, have stirred global revulsion and led to demands for tougher sanctions and war crime charges.
Making his first appearance before the UN's highest body charged with ensuring international peace and security, Zelenskyy said the Russian troops are no different from other terrorists like the so-called Islamic State group.
He presented the council with a brief video featuring images of atrocities that ended with the words “Stop Russian Aggression.”
Zelenskyy stressed that Bucha was only one place and that there are more with similar horrors, calling for a tribunal similar to the one that was set up at Nuremberg to try war criminals after World War II.
The grisly scenes of battered and burned bodies and evidence that some of the dead were bound and shot in the head have led Western nations to expel dozens more of Moscow's diplomats and propose further sanctions, including a ban on coal imports from Russia.
The head of NATO, meanwhile, warned that Russia is regrouping its forces in order to deploy them to eastern and southern Ukraine for a “crucial phase of the war" and said that more horrors may come to light as Russian troops continue to pull back in the north.
“When and if they withdraw their troops and Ukrainian troops take over, I’m afraid they
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