A year after the massacre of civilians in Boutcha, the Ukrainian president hailed his country’s resistance. The discovery of the corpses of civilians had moved the whole world and Boutcha has since become a symbol of the atrocities attributed to the troops in Moscow.
President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed this Sunday the Ukrainian resistance against “the greatest force against humanity of our time”, on the first anniversary of the discovery of the bodies of civilians killed in Boutcha, a city that has become a symbol of atrocities committed by the Russians.
Moscow, for its part, has repeatedly denied any involvement and evoked a “staging” of Ukraine and its allies.
“We will liberate all our lands”
This anniversary comes the day after Russia took over the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council, where it faces Westerners who have ostracized it from nations since the start of its invasion of Ukraine.
“Ukrainian people! You have stopped the greatest force against humanity of our time. You have stopped a force that despises and wants to destroy everything that matters to people,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram .
“We will liberate all our lands. We will put the Ukrainian flag back in all our cities and towns,” he said, while Russia still controls more than 18% of Ukrainian territory.
“We continue the struggle for the independence of our homeland,” said the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zaloujny.
Symbol of Russian atrocities
On April 2, 2022, AFP journalists saw the bodies of twenty men in civilian clothes in Boutcha, one of whom had his hands tied behind his back, in addition to the charred carcasses of vehicles and destroyed houses.
These scenes had shocked the whole world, kyiv and Westerners repeatedly denouncing summary executions of civilians and war crimes.
Since then, Butcha has become a symbol of the atrocities attributed to Moscow troops during their occupation of the region.
For the commander of Ukrainian ground forces, Oleksandre Syrsky, the forced retreat of the Russians from the Kiev region a year ago, while they were near the capital, was “a strategic victory” at “the base of successful new operations”.
Visibly upset and very moved, Volodymyr Zelensky had denounced “war crimes” which will be “recognized by the world as genocide” after going to Boutcha a year ago.
Since then, almost all foreign leaders who have visited Ukraine have made a detour to go to Boutcha.
A “symbol of justice”
On Friday, on the first anniversary of Russia’s withdrawal from the Kiev region, following unexpected Ukrainian resistance, Volodymyr Zelensky said he hoped Boucha would become a “symbol of justice”, vowing to defeat “Russian evil “.
“We will never forgive,” he said, promising to bring “all the guilty” Russians to justice.
Ukraine estimates that “more than 1,400” civilians died in the Boutcha district during the Russian occupation, including 37 children. Among them, 637 were killed in the city itself.
