The leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church denounced the “horrific war crimes” committed by Russian troops in Bucha.
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said that the world saw “such scenes after the liberation from the Nazis” and now is seeing them again in Ukraine.
“Literally a few tens of kilometers from the center of Kyiv, in the liberated towns, we see horrific war crimes,” he said.
“Mass graves with hundreds of lifeless bodies. Executed people lying in the streets, sometimes with tied hands. Naked bodies of women which they did not have time to burn.”
Meanwhile, pope Francis has said that he is considering going to Kyiv. The Holy Father called the invasion of Urkraine “an ‘infantile and destructive aggression’ under the guise of ‘anachronist claims of nationalistic interests.’
From Catholic News Agency
The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church on Sunday denounced “horrific war crimes” reportedly committed by Russian forces in a city near Kyiv.
In his daily video message on April 3, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk referred to images from the city of Bucha, around 15 miles northwest of the Ukrainian capital, and other newly liberated areas.
“Literally a few tens of kilometers from the center of Kyiv, in the liberated towns, we see horrific war crimes,” he said.
“Mass graves with hundreds of lifeless bodies. Executed people lying in the streets, sometimes with tied hands. Naked bodies of women which they did not have time to burn.”
“Europe only saw such scenes in the liberation from the Nazis. Today Ukraine is seeing this, and it is so important that the whole world sees and hears it.”
Pope Francis says he is studying a possible visit to Kyiv and he blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin for launching a “savage” war, as he arrived in Malta and delivered his most pointed and personalized denunciation yet of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Francis didn’t cite Putin by name, but the reference was clear when he said that “some potentate” had unleashed the threat of nuclear war on the world in an “infantile and destructive aggression” under the guise of “anachronist claims of nationalistic interests.”
Speaking to Maltese authorities Saturday, Francis said: “We had thought that invasions of other countries, savage street fighting and atomic threats were grim memories of a distant past.”
Francis has to date avoided referring to Russia or Putin by name. But Saturday’s personalization of the powerful figure responsible marked a new level of outrage for the pope, who spoke as a humanitarian crisis in the encircled Ukrainian port city of Mariupol deepened, and after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of mines outside the capital, Kyiv.
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