US President Joe Biden described his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, as a "war criminal", and demanded his trial and the imposition of more sanctions on Russia, while Moscow denied the involvement of its forces in any crimes against civilians in Ukraine and accused the West of forgery and fabrication.

"You saw what happened in Bucha, he is a war criminal," Biden told reporters at the White House, referring to Western reports of "massacres that may amount to war crimes" carried out by Russian forces in the town of Bucha, northwest of Kyiv.

Biden said details of the allegations of atrocities should be gathered after many bodies in civilian clothes were discovered in the streets of the town after Russian forces withdrew and the Ukrainian army recaptured it two days ago.

In the context, Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedorok said that half of the town was destroyed by Russian forces, and that there are many destroyed buildings and corpses in the streets, adding in an interview with CNN, the American news network, that the Ukrainian authorities were able to identify about 50 % of the dead bodies.

And the images published by the American company, "Mixar Technologies" for satellites, showed a trench about 14 meters long, dug in the grounds of a church in Bucha, where a mass grave was discovered.

And "Mixar" indicated that the pictures taken on March 31 come after previous pictures published on the tenth of the same month, showing signs of excavation in the grounds of "St. Andrew's Church".


Zelensky in Bucha

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described what happened in Bucha as a crime of genocide, saying that they would prosecute those who committed those crimes, as he put it.

In his speech today from Bucha, he stressed that the pressure on European leaders is a Russian game to keep his country away from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and that Moscow pressured many European leaders to influence their views on what is happening in Ukraine, as he put it.

In the opposite camp, the Kremlin expressed Moscow's rejection of accusations of killing civilians in the city of Bucha, adding that Russian Defense Ministry specialists had revealed signs of falsification in videos of civilian deaths.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Biden's comments on Putin "show that some in the West have a problem of conscience."

Lavrov considered that the Ukrainians and the West are fabricating things about the city of Bucha and that what is being broadcast is just a drama, adding that the Russian forces withdrew from Bucha on the thirtieth of last month, and things were normal, but Moscow was surprised by the Ukrainians publishing pictures days later.

Upon receiving Martin Griffiths, the representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs in Moscow, Lavrov explained that Moscow had called for a session of the Human Rights Council on what he called the Ukrainian provocations related to Bucha, because they represent a threat to international peace and security.


In turn, Dmitriy Polyansky, Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, confirmed that Russia will insist on holding a meeting in the UN Security Council today, Monday, against the backdrop of what he called the provocations organized by Ukrainian extremists in the city of Bucha.

Polyansky said that Britain canceled the Russian request to hold a Security Council meeting on Bucha, under unreasonable procedural pretexts, as he put it.

He pointed out that London does not want Russia to raise this issue separately, to avoid harming the reputation of Western countries that accused Russia of killing civilians in Bucha, as he put it.

The Russian official stressed that Moscow will insist on holding this meeting on Monday, noting that the world needs to know the truth.

western anger

On the other hand, French President Emmanuel Macron said that there was clear evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, indicating that the Russian army was responsible for them.

Macron added, in an interview with Radio France International, that Europe needs new sanctions, including coal and fuel, to be used as a pressure card in the talks.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the discovery of more mass graves outside Kyiv is disgusting.

And he added in a tweet to him that the United Kingdom "will not stand idly by while this indiscriminate and unforgivable massacre occurs," stressing that his country is working to ensure that those responsible are held accountable.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he had held a call with his Chinese counterpart and expressed his gratitude to him for Beijing's solidarity with the civilian victims.

Kuleba said in a tweet that Ukraine and China are convinced that ending the war on Ukraine serves the common interests of peace, world food security and international trade.


international condemnation

In a statement, the European Union expressed its condemnation of what it described as the atrocities committed by Russian forces in the Ukrainian cities that were retaken.

The Federation accused the Russian authorities of being responsible for it and said that it fell within the jurisdiction of international law during the occupation period.

The statement issued by the Commissioner for Foreign Policy said that the European Union supports all measures to ensure that violators of human rights and international law in Ukraine are held accountable.

Meanwhile, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas Greenfield said that Washington intends to convene a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly to vote on suspending Russia from the Human Rights Council.

Greenfield added in an interview with CNN that the vote would obtain the required number of votes.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also said that there are possible war crimes after the horrific scenes in Ukraine's Bucha.