Zelensky says Putin should ‘spend the rest of his days in a basement with a bucket’ as Ukraine leader visits hellhole where Russian troops kept an entire village of 367 for a month
- Ukrainian President marks the one year anniversary of the liberation of Yahidne
- Russian invaders forced the population into a school basement where 11 died
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday he hoped Russian leader Vladimir Putin would spend the rest of his life in a dark basement with a bucket.
Zelensky spoke in the village of Yahidne, north of Kyiv, where he and German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck travelled to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the settlement from Russian troops.
Russian invaders last year forced 367 people – nearly the entire population of Yahidne – into a school basement measuring 200 square metres.
The villagers, including an 18-month-old baby, were kept there for almost a month, and 11 of them died.
‘After seeing all this, I hope the president of Russia will spend the rest of his days in a basement with a bucket for toilet,’ the Ukrainian leader said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pauses as he speaks during a visit to Yahidne
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky leaves the basement of a school, in the village of Yahidne, Chernihiv region, where all the residents were jailed during the Russian occupation
Zelenskyy, left, Secretary General of the Council of Europe Marija Pejcinovic Buric, center, and German economy and climate minister Robert Habeck, visit the school basement in Yahidne
A photograph taken on April 3, 2023 shows children drawings in the basement of a school where villagers were kept for almost a month by Russian troops in the village of Yahidne
Zelensky said the villagers who were held in the basement for 27 days recorded the names of those who died ‘so as not to forget them’.
‘And children wrote lines of the Ukrainian anthem,’ he added.
One of the survivors said some people died from lack of oxygen in the small cellar.
‘At first it was cold here, but then there were more people and there was not enough oxygen,’ 38-year-old Valeriy Polgui told AFP.
‘The elderly people lost consciousness from lack of oxygen, lost their mind and then died,’ he said.
Kyiv authorities and Western governments have accused Russian forces of committing numerous crimes in Ukraine. Moscow denies the claims.
Yahidne is a small village due north of the Ukrainian capital.
Invading forces dug in as they came up against resistance around Kyiv at the start of the war.
Le Monde wrote that for natives, the siege is remembered as ‘their’ Bucha, referring to the massacre outside Kyiv in March last year.
The bodies of more than 450 innocent men, women and children were found around Bucha by authorities after the Russian retreat.
Wayne Jordash KC, Managing Partner of international law firm Global Rights Compliance, which is supporting the investigation of war crimes by Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General, said: ‘There can be no doubt that Russian forces were working to a plan.
‘At the very least, Russia intended to destroy Ukraine as a nation through a concerted campaign of international crimes.
‘Over 450 civilians met their untimely deaths and hundreds more were disappeared, tortured, sexually violated or injured during the almost one month of occupation at the hands of this brutal force
‘The Russian plan for Bucha is now as clear as day: they wanted to eliminate any semblance of Ukrainian resistance and identity in the town, and they were willing to stop at nothing – terrorism, torture and indiscriminate murder of civilians included – to achieve this goal.’
The comments coincide with the one-year anniversary of the Bucha massacre, which ended on 31 March 2022.
Halyna Tolochina stands in front of a wall inscribed with the names of people who died inside a school basement, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, in the village of Yahidne
Visitors stand next to the name list of the villagers who died in the basement of a school where they were kept for almost a month by Russian troops in the village of Yahidne, north of Kyiv
Residents of Yahidne are seen inside the basement of a school, a day after Russian troops left, in the village of Yahidne, near to Chernihiv, Ukraine, on March 31, 2022
People attend a vigil marking the first anniversary of the liberation of the town of Bucha, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine in Bucha, outside Kyiv, Ukraine March 31, 2023
A child stands near one of the portraits at the alley of portraits of local residents who died during the Russia-Ukraine war in Bucha, Ukraine on April 01, 2023
Robert Habeck, German vice chancellor, travelled to Kyiv today for an unannounced visit and was pictured with Zelensky at the school basement in Yahidne.
He travelled with a business delegation that included the head of Germany’s main industry lobby group, the Federation of German Industries.
Mr Habeck said the trip was meant to send a clear signal ‘that we believe they will be victorious, that they will be rebuilt, that there is an interest on Europe’s part not just to support them in an emergency, but in Ukraine being an economically strong partner in the future’.
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