JAKARTA - French President Emmanuel Macron said there were clear indications that Russian troops were responsible for killing civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, so that new sanctions targeting Russia were deemed necessary.
"There are very clear indications of war crimes. It's more or less established that the Russian army is responsible (for Bucha's killing)," President Macron told France Inter radio.
"What happened in Bucha demands a new round of sanctions and very clear action," Macron added.
The new sanctions should target coal and oil, said Macron, who faces a re-election battle this month.
It was reported earlier that Bucha, a Ukrainian city, had just been liberated from Russian 'rule', when the city's leader accused Moscow soldiers of deliberately killing civilians during the roughly month-long occupation, a charge denied by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, showed the Reuters team two bodies with white cloths tied around their arms which he said were what residents were forced to wear by fighters from Chechnya, a region in southern Russia that has deployed troops to Ukraine in support of Russia. . One of the corpses was bound by a white cloth, and appeared to have been shot in the mouth.
"Every war has some rules of engagement for civilians. Russia has shown that they knowingly kill civilians," Fedoruk said.
Fedoruk said on Saturday that more than 300 of the city's residents had died. Reuters, brought to the scene by Ukrainian authorities, was not immediately able to verify the mayor's allegations.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry categorically rejects the accusations by the Kyiv regime, related to the alleged massacre of civilians in the settlement of Bucha City in the Kyiv region that were made last weekend.
Apart from that, the ministry also said that the photos and videos of Bucha are yet another fake made by the Kyiv Government regime for Western media.
"All photos and videos allegedly proving the 'crimes' committed by Russian troops in Bucha City, Kiev region, which were released by the Kiev regime, constitute another provocation," the ministry said, TASS reported.
"The photos and videos of Bucha are fakes made by the Kiev regime for the Western media, just as it was done in Mariupol maternity homes and in other cities," the ministry stressed.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday said he was "'deeply appalled' by the picture of civilians killed in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, calling for an independent investigation that 'leads to effective accountability'.'
"I am appalled by the images of civilians killed in Bucha, Ukraine. It is imperative that independent investigations lead to effective accountability," he stressed.
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