Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky calls out Russia for acts of ‘terror’, seeks ‘international tribunal’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russian troops of targeting civilians, including children, and demanded an international probe into the fighting on Sunday.

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“What they are doing in Kharkiv, Okhtyrka, Kyiv, Odessa, and other cities and towns deserves an international tribunal. We are documenting their crimes. And there would have been many more of these crimes if it hadn’t been for our courageous defenders,” Zelensky stated this in a video message uploaded on his Facebook page.

“We have to call a spade a spade. Russia’s criminal actions against Ukraine show signs of genocide. I spoke about this with the UN Secretary-General,” he argued that Russia’s voting privileges on the UN Security Council should be revoked.

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The Ukrainian President said there was “not a single facility in Ukraine the Russian troops would consider an unacceptable target.”

Residents in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, awakened Sunday to find the city still firmly in Ukrainian control, despite two large explosions 30 kilometres, or about 18 miles, south of the city lighting up the sky overnight.

Fighting has erupted on the streets of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, following the arrival of Russian forces.

Previously, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that it was only targeting military infrastructure, saying in a statement, “The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation do not strike cities and towns, they take all measures to save the lives of civilians.”

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But Zelensky said Sunday, “They lied when they said they would not target civilian population. Since the first hours of the invasion, Russian troops have been hitting civilian infrastructure.”

“This is terror,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stated, adding that Russia was conducting “war crimes.”

“They are fighting against everything and everyone,” Zelensky said. “They are [hitting] kindergartens, residential buildings, and even emergency vehicles. They use artillery and missiles against whole residential blocks where there have never been any military infrastructure. Many Ukrainian cities and towns are surviving in conditions we previously had only during World War II.”