Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/LONDON: Russian ambassador to the United Kingdom Andrey Kelin has said that the killing of civilians in Ukraine’s Bucha area was ‘staged’ by Ukrainian troops. He denied that Moscow’s troops committed atrocities in Ukraine, instead accusing the Western countries of destroying the country, especially, the UK for promising to give Kyiv long-range weapons.
Ambassador on Western weaponry
He also said that long-range weapons threatened Russian citizens and people in the pro-Russia territory in Ukraine, which needed Russia’s troops to push deeper into Ukraine to protect innocent civilians from the extended range of Western weapon systems, especially those promised by the UK.
The envoy said the UK’s provision of these weapons – which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised last month, including training Ukrainian jet pilots – would not be a big threat to Russia on the battlefield.
He bluntly denied that Russian troops were guilty of atrocities – including the killing of civilians and rape – committed in Bucha, Mariupol, and Irpin. Over 1,000 bodies of civilians were discovered in Bucha after Russian troops withdrew from the region in late March 2022. The Ukrainian police said that some 650 people were executed.
