KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — European foreign ministers visited Ukraine on Tuesday to mark the fourth anniversary of atrocities committed in a town near Kyiv by Russia’s invading forces.
With U.S.-led efforts to end the war on hold and Washington’s attention gripped by the conflict in the Middle East, European governments are keen to keep a spotlight on the continent’s biggest land war in decades, now in its fifth year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he would hold a video call on Wednesday about ways to end Russia's invasion, with American negotiators as well as NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte joining in. Washington's representatives will include Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, he said. The talks have yielded no breakthroughs on key issues so far.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s long-range drones hammered Russian oil facilities in the Baltic Sea Monday night for the fifth time in just over a week, as Kyiv tries to prevent Moscow from profiting off its oil exports amid an energy crisis, prompted by the Iran war, and a temporary U.S. waiver on Russian oil sanctions. The export income finances Moscow's war effort, Ukraine says.
Fourth anniversary of Bucha atrocities
A group of 12 European foreign ministers, as well as numerous lower-ranking officials, arrived by train in Kyiv where they were welcomed by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, who noted the “grim anniversary” of the atrocities in Bucha.
Russian troops quickly occupied the town after launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. They stayed for about a month.
When Ukrainian troops retook Bucha, they found more than 400 bodies left by Russia’s “cleansing” operation. The Russians hunted people on lists prepared by their intelligence services and went door to door to identify potential threats.
“Such a strong European presence (in Ukraine) on this day demonstrates that justice for this and other Russian atrocities is inevitable,” Sybiha said in a post on X. “Comprehensive accountability for Russian crimes is vital to restore justice in Europe.”
At the Church of St. Andrew in Bucha, after viewing dozens of graphic photographs and a video display of the massacres with his European Union counterparts, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski was grim.
“Anybody who claims that (Russian President) Vladimir Putin is not a war criminal should come and see for themselves,” Sikorski told The Associated Press.
Authorities say that many of the victims were gunned down in the street. Some had their hands tied behind their backs, and others showed signs of torture or rape.
The United Nations has documented more than 70 summary executions.
EU seeks to hold Russia accountable
Part of Tuesday’s meeting between EU officials and their Ukrainian counterparts was to focus on reassuring Kyiv of continued European efforts to hold Russia to account for its invasion.
On the way to Kyiv, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas underlined the importance of ensuring that those who gave the orders to kill in places like Bucha are held to account, as much as those who carried out the atrocities.
“One of the things that is really necessary is accountability. Otherwise, you have revenge and retaliation,” Kallas said. “If you don’t see people doing this to your family held accountable, you will want revenge.”
The Iran war is currently a top priority for the United States and risks diverting resources that Ukraine needs, such as air defense systems.
“We can’t let it (the war in Ukraine) slip off the table,” Kallas said. “We are the ones who have to keep this up, because nobody else does.”
The EU has faced its own challenges in helping Ukraine. The 27-nation bloc failed to approve new sanctions on Russia last month, after objections from Hungary. Budapest, which has quarreled with its EU partners over support for Ukraine and Russian oil deliveries, has also blocked a 90 billion-euro ($103 billion) loan as Kyiv runs low on cash. Ukraine’s application for EU membership, meanwhile, is expected to take years.
Ukraine steps up long-range drone attacks
Russia, meanwhile, could reap a windfall from a surge in oil prices and the U.S. temporary waiver on Russian oil sanctions designed to ease supply shortages. Russia is one of the world's main oil exporters, and Asian nations are increasingly competing for Russian crude oil as an energy crisis mounts.
In response, Ukraine has intensified its long-range drone attacks on Russian oil facilities, which have rattled Moscow.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said that its forces carried out a series of strikes over the past week targeting Russia’s oil export infrastructure on the Baltic Sea, hitting key facilities in the northwest Leningrad region used to ship crude and petroleum products.
Ukrainian drones struck oil loading infrastructure and storage tanks at the Transneft terminal in Primorsk on March 22–23, starting a fire, the ministry said. Repeated strikes on the Novatek Ust-Luga port complex have damaged storage facilities and loading docks and ignited large fires.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has also struck Russia’s oil ports in the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea with more than 2,500 drones, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told a news conference in Helsinki.
“It is likely that Ukraine’s operations will continue,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday that “intensive work is being carried out” to strengthen air defenses at the oil port of Ust-Luga and other critical infrastructure facilities.
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Illia Novikov in Kyiv, and Kostya Manenkov in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
