Ukraine vs Russia war: UN calls for investigation into Bucha massacre

On Tuesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres joined rising international calls for a war crimes probe into the deaths of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.

The secretary-general’s remarks came after terrible photographs from Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, which revealed hundreds of dead individuals, some with bullet wounds and their wrists tied behind their backs, and others burnt or buried in territories formerly controlled by Russian soldiers.

Guterres, speaking to the UN Security Council, stated that an impartial investigation was required to ensure effective accountability.

He described the Ukraine crisis, which was prompted by Russia’s “fully-fledged invasion” of its neighbour, as “one of the greatest challenges ever to the international order and the global peace architecture, founded on the UN Charter.”

According to him, the Russian offensive has displaced more than 10 million people in just one month, the fastest forced population movement since the Second World War.

Guterres said that beyond Ukraine’s borders and particularly in developing nations, the disruption to global supply chains caused by the war had prompted massive price hikes for food, energy and fertilizers, as Russia and Ukraine remained
major global producers.

“In the past month alone, wheat prices have increased by 22 percent, maize by 21 per cent and barley by 31 per cent,” the secretary-general said.

He noted with concern that 74 developing countries with a total population of 1.2 billion people were “particularly vulnerable” to spiking food, energy and fertiliser costs.

The UN chief also warned that debt repayments now account for 16 percent of developing countries’ export earnings, while the burden is twice as high for small island developing states because of increased interest rates and expensive imports.

Given the urgency of the situation, the UN chief explained that he had tasked the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, to travel to Russia and Ukraine to press for an urgent humanitarian ceasefire.