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The images are in everyone’s head. After the discovery of dozens of corpses in mass graves or littering the streets around the Ukrainian capital this weekend, Emmanuel Macron said he was in favor on Monday of the European Union deciding on new sanctions vis-à-vis live in Russia. According to Josep Borell, discussions are underway to hit Russia again.
“There are very clear indications of war crimes” in the small town of Boutcha, and it is “almost established that it was the Russian army” which was present there, assured the French president on the radio France Inter, questioned about the discovery of civilians in the kyiv region.
He reaffirmed, as he had done on Sunday in a tweet, to be “extremely shocked” by “the unbearable scenes” in Boutcha, which must be condemned “with the greatest firmness”. For the President of the Republic and presidential candidate “what happened imposes a new series of sanctions and very clear measures. So we are going to coordinate with our European partners, in particular Germany” in “the coming days”, he said, referring to individual sanctions and measures on “coal and oil”.
Unanimity needed for new measures
With “what is happening”, in particular “in Mariupol, we must send the signal that it is our collective dignity and our values that we are defending”, continued Emmanuel Macron.
In the aftermath, the European Union, through High Representative Josep Borrell, condemned “in the strongest terms the reported atrocities committed by Russian armed forces in several occupied Ukrainian towns, which have now been liberated”. A new set of sanctions is under discussion between the 27, but unanimity is necessary for the adoption of new measures.
What penalties? Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba framed his expectations in a tweet: “I demand devastating new G7 sanctions NOW: embargo on oil, gas and coal, close all ports to Russian ships and goods , disconnect all Russian banks from SWIFT”.
Pressure on hydrocarbons
The pressure thus bears in particular on hydrocarbons, an important financial resource for Russia. As of Saturday, the Baltic States had announced the cessation of their importation of Russian gas, and the Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, had called on the rest of the EU to follow them.
The total number of dead still remains uncertain in Boutcha. According to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Iryna Venediktova, the lifeless bodies of 410 civilians were found in the territories of the Kyiv region recently recaptured from Russian troops.
AFP saw the bodies of at least 22 people in civilian clothes on the streets of Boutcha on Saturday, killed by “a bullet in the back of the neck”, according to the mayor, Anatoli Fedorouk, to AFP.
Mr. Fedorouk also said on Saturday that “280 people” had been buried “in mass graves” because they could not be buried in communal cemeteries, all within range of Russian fire during the fighting. Moscow has denied any wrongdoing.