New Delhi: In the wake of ‘appalling acts’ on the people in Ukrainian towns of Irpin and Bucha, the foreign secretary of Britain said that Russia’s attacks on civilians must be investigated as war crimes.
According to a report by news agency AFP, Britain’s foreign secretary Liz Truss, in a statement said that the government is seeing “increasing evidence of appalling acts by the invading forces in towns such as Irpin and Bucha", close to Kyiv.
Truss further said that the Russian military’s "indiscriminate attacks against innocent civilians during Russia's illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine must be investigated as war crimes".
As per the report, the AFP reporters saw at least 20 bodies, all dressed in civilian clothing, strewn across a single street in Bucha on Saturday.
"We will not allow Russia to cover up their involvement in these atrocities through cynical disinformation," Truss said, adding that the United Kingdom "will fully support any investigations by the International Criminal Court".
The foreign secretary further called for harsher sanctions following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s tweet late Saturday saying that the UK would "continue to step up military, economic and diplomatic support, including further ramping up sanctions".
Truss further said that it was essential that the international community "continues to provide Ukraine with the humanitarian and military support it so dearly needs, and that we step up sanctions to cut off funding for Putin's war machine at source".