President Zelensky Calls The Situation In Borodyanka City More Terrible Than Bucha

Presiden Ukraina Volodymyr Zelensky. (Wikimedia Commons/The Presidential Office of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday the situation in the town of Borodyanka was far direr than in the neighboring city of Bucha, where alleged killings of civilians by Russian troops have been widely condemned.

Local officials said more than 300 people were killed by Russian forces in Bucha, 35 kilometers northwest of the capital Kyiv, with about 50 of them executed.

Moscow has denied targeting civilians and says the images of bodies in Bucha were staged by the Ukrainian government to justify more sanctions against Moscow and thwart peace negotiations.

"Work to clear the rubble on Borodyanka has begun. It is significantly more terrible there. Even more victims are from the Russian occupiers," President Zelensky said in a video posted on the Telegram messaging service.

He did not provide further details or evidence that Russia was responsible for civilian deaths in the city. It is known, the city of Borodyanka is about 25 km from Bucha.

Previously, the killing of civilians in Bucha City had been widely denounced by the West as a war crime, building pressure for tougher sanctions against Russia.

"And what will happen when the world finds out the whole truth about what the Russian military is doing in Mariupol?" President Zelensky asked.

"There, on almost every street, is what the world saw in Bucha and other cities in the Kyiv region after the withdrawal of Russian troops," he said.

Moscow says one of the goals of its military campaign is to "liberate" most Russian-speaking places, such as the southern port of Mariupol, from the threat of genocide by Ukrainian nationalists, who are said to have used civilians as human shields.

Meanwhile, President Zelensky has rejected the claim, saying it is a baseless pretext for a Russian invasion.