WORLD NEWS | Ukraine’s top prosecutor speaks out about ‘evil’ Russian atrocities

WASHINGTON, April 20 (AP) – Ukraine’s top prosecutor told U.S. lawmakers in graphic testimony Wednesday that Russia’s invading forces deliberately used rape, torture and kidnapping in an attempt to sow terror among Ukrainian civilians.

Ukraine has registered nearly 80,000 war crimes cases since the war began in February 2022, said Attorney General Andrey Kostin.

Read also | Kagame has defended Russia’s presence in Africa.

Focusing on just one war-torn part of the country, Kostin described some of the findings when Ukrainian troops liberated Kherson last November. He said they found about 20 torture chambers, and more than 1,000 survivors reported a range of abuses, including the use of electric shocks, water boarding, forced stripping, and threats of mutilation and death.

More than 60 rapes have been recorded in the Kherson region alone, Kostin said. In areas still under Russian military control, residents, including children, are forcibly relocated to other occupied territories or to Russia.

Read also | Sudan violence: UK calls for immediate end to fighting and lasting ceasefire in African country.

“Evil like this cannot go unnoticed,” Kostin said.

He was asked about the motives behind Russian tactics, but said he struggled to understand the brutality of Russian troops targeting civilians.

“The only possible explanation is that they just wanted to wipe Ukraine and Ukrainians from the land,” Kostin said. “Maybe because they really wanted to kill us all.”

The House Foreign Affairs Committee invited Kostin to testify. The chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), argued that focusing on the brutality of Russia’s actions would show lawmakers and voters why the U.S. was right to support Ukraine.

“This is happening. They are monsters and they need to be brought to justice,” McCall said. He added: “These are not just war crimes. These are not just crimes against humanity. What we are witnessing in Ukraine is genocide.”

McCall also issued a challenge to other lawmakers, saying “history will judge us by what we do here and now.”

“No country can remain neutral in the face of such evil,” McCall said.

Congress approved about $113 billion in economic, humanitarian and military spending in 2022 to aid Ukraine. U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly said the U.S. will help Ukraine repel a Russian invasion “for as long as needed,” according to polls, although support for the aid has waned.

Congressional leaders expect Ukraine will need billions of dollars in additional aid in the coming months.

Ukraine is preparing to launch a counteroffensive in an attempt to retake territory recaptured by Russian forces. McCall said he would like to see the United States support Ukraine’s efforts to retake Crimea on the Black Sea peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014, so it can negotiate a ceasefire from a stronger position. He is pushing the United States and its allies to provide Ukraine with long-range artillery and F-16 fighter jets for a counteroffensive.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted that he spoke by phone with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) and thanked Congress for the bipartisan support. Zelensky also outlined the “situation on the front lines” and Ukraine’s “urgent defense needs for armored vehicles, artillery, air defense and aircraft.”

The House committee also heard from a war crimes survivor, a 57-year-old woman, who said she was taken to a torture chamber for five days, beaten, forced to strip and threatened with rape and murder. At one point, she was forced to dig her own grave. She said her house was ransacked. She has escaped, but other Ukrainians are still being treated this way in Russian-controlled territory, she said.

“These horrific crimes need to be stopped,” she told lawmakers. She was not identified out of fear of reprisals.

Kostin said exposing atrocities is not enough.

“Only when the truth is discovered and established, perpetrators are held accountable, and victims and survivors are provided with adequate reparations, can we say that justice has been served,” Kostin said.

The International Criminal Court last month issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on war crime charges, accusing him of being personally responsible for the abduction of Ukrainian children. But the practical impact is limited, as Moscow does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction or extradite its nationals, so Putin is unlikely to stand trial in the court.

McCall told The Associated Press that he will press the Justice Department and FBI agents to assist Ukraine’s prosecutors, even though he doubts there will be a full accounting of war crimes.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, how this is going to end,” McCall said. “But at least there will be historical records of what they did, for generations to read about the atrocities.” (AP)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)