Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of attempting to cover up evidence of war crimes committed by its troops in occupied areas.
Zelensky, who will address an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, accused Vladimir Putin’s regime of mounting a “propaganda” operation to cast doubt over reports that Ukrainian civilians have been murdered by his forces.
“We must also be aware that after the revealed mass killings of civilians in the Kyiv region, the occupiers may have a different attitude to their crimes in another part of our country where they came,” the Ukrainian leader said.
“They are already launching a false campaign to conceal their guilt in the mass killings of civilians in Mariupol. They will do dozens of stage interviews, re-edited recordings, and will kill people specifically to make it look like they were killed by someone else.”
“They used the same tactics when the occupiers shot down a Malaysian Boeing over Donbas. They blamed Ukraine. They even came up with various conspiracy theories. They even went so far as to claim that the corpses were “thrown” on board the plane before it crashed,” he added.
He called on Western leaders to impose further sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s regime, saying that the punishments “must finally be powerful”.