EU officials said Monday they were weighing new sanctions targeting Moscow in response to alleged atrocities against Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces that sparked a wave of international outrage.
Despite Russian denials of responsibility, condemnation was swift, with Western leaders, NATO and the UN all voicing horror at images of dead bodies in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, and elsewhere.
Local authorities said they had been forced to dig communal graves to bury the dead accumulating in the streets, including one in Bucha found with his hands bound behind his back.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russian troops “murderers, torturers, rapists, looters” and warned in his nightly video message that “concentrated evil has come to our land.” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc was urgently discussing a new round of sanctions as it condemned “atrocities” reported in Ukrainian towns that have been occupied by troops sent in by Russian President Vladimir Putin five weeks ago.
The proposals, which French President Emmanuel Macron said could target Russia’s oil and coal sectors, could be discussed by foreign ministers on the sidelines of a NATO meeting on Wednesday and Thursday, or at their regular meeting early next week, an EU official told AFP.
