‘A total genocide’: Ukrainian MP gives first-hand account of Bucha visit
By Alexandra Mae Jones
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TORONTO (CTV Network) — WARNING: This story contains disturbing details.
A member of Ukrainian Parliament, who toured the streets of Bucha on Sunday and Monday, says what she saw amounts to a “total genocide.”
In an interview on CTV News Channel’s Power Play on Monday, MP and leader of Ukraine’s liberal and pro-Europe Holos Party Kira Rudyk said she’s witnessed mass graves of about 300 bodies.
“Most of them with their hands tied behind their backs – men but also women and children. Some of them killed all together, some of them killed separately,” she said.
“The bodies, they were trying to burn, especially women, to cover [up] the rapes and all the other sexual assault happening there. So what we have seen was a total genocide.”
Rudyk said she is using the term “genocide” intentionally because the individuals were not armed, nor were they resistant.
Scenes like those depicted by Rudyk on the outskirts of Ukraine’s capital, have prompted international condemnation and calls for a war crimes trial against Russia President Vladimir Putin.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the civilian killings “egregious and appalling” in a tweet on Sunday, while Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly told reporters on Monday that Canada would be providing additional funding to support the International Criminal Court investigation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and that the government would impose new sanctions on Russian and Belarusian individuals.
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Sonja Puzic
