Russia will once again request to hold a UN Security Council meeting on the matter of the Ukrainian city of Bucha after a previous request did not receive approval from the UK – another permanent member of the council, the Russian Foreign Ministry has stated.
"Yesterday […] the British presidency of the UN Security Council did not agree to a meeting of the Security Council on the situation in Bucha. Russia today will again demand the convening of the UN Security Council in connection with the criminal provocations by the Ukrainian military and radicals in this city", Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Moscow originally requested the UNSC meeting to be held on 4 April. Russia wanted to devote the meeting to discussions about the Ukrainian "provocation" in the city of Bucha in the Kiev region and a new "crime by the Kiev regime" – the disruption of peace talks and escalation of violence, Zakharova said.
The Russian Defence Ministry earlier slammed photos and video footage allegedly showing the bodies of civilians scattered around the streets of Bucha as staged by Ukrainian authorities to spread them in the Western media and accuse Russian troops of killing them. The Defence Ministry pointed out that Russian forces left the city on 30 March and that the town's mayor reported no bodies on the streets when he confirmed their departure the next day.
The Russian ministry additionally noted that Bucha's residents had access to cell networks throughout the Russian Army's stay there. The footage and the photos only emerged four days later, when the Ukrainian Security Service and the media arrived in Bucha, the ministry's statement said.
Ukraine previously accused Russian troops of killing civilians in Bucha using the footage, allegedly shot on one of the city's streets and purportedly showing the bodies of some of the victims as evidence of a crime. Several countries in the West, the UK included, rushed to accuse Russia despite the inconsistencies in Kiev's reporting and lack of a thorough investigation of the alleged incident.
The Russian Defence Ministry stressed that no residents of Bucha were harmed by Russian servicemen while they were there. The ministry's statement also noted that the residents of the city were allowed to leave via humanitarian corridors and that the southern portion of the town was routinely shelled by Ukrainian forces.
Russian forces, carrying out the nation's special military operation in Ukraine since 24 February, withdrew from Bucha on 30 March as part of de-escalation steps voluntarily undertaken by Moscow to facilitate peace negotiations with Ukraine. The head of the Russian diplomatic delegation noted that the Kremlin is aware that certain decision-makers reside in Kiev and hence chose to significantly reduce Russian military operations in the direction of Kiev.
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