KYIV: Russia’s offensive in the Ukraine continued Tuesday while the government in the UK has warned Vladimir Putin and his commanders are facing the possibility of being charged with war crimes.
The central square of Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, was shelled on Tuesday by advancing Russian forces who hit the building of the local administration, regional governor Oleg Sinegubov said.
“This morning the central square of our city and the headquarters of the Kharkiv administration was criminally attacked,” Sinegubov said in a video on Telegram.
“Russian occupiers continue to use heavy weaponry against the civilian population,” he said, adding that the number of victims was not yet known.
He posted footage of the massive blast and debris inside the building.
Kharkiv, a largely Russian-speaking city near the Russian border, has a population of around 1.4 million.
It has been a target for Russian forces since President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine last Thursday.
Separately, an official in the region of Sumy, which lies north of Kharkiv close to Russia’s border, said early on Monday that some 70 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in Russian shelling on a military facility in the area.
“Many died. Currently, places are being prepared in the cemetery for about 70 dead Ukrainian soldiers,” Dmytro Zhyvytsky, the head of the Sumy region, wrote on Telegram after strikes on the town of Okhtyrka.
He posted images of charred buildings with caved-in walls and rescue workers digging through rubble.
The Ukrainian military, however, has not confirmed the deaths. Russia has denied targeting civilian areas despite rockets landing in residential neighbourhoods.
Ukraine says more than 350 civilians have been killed since Moscow launched the attack last week.
In London, The UK government warned Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commanders in Ukraine could face prosecution for war crimes, as indiscriminate shelling hit one city under invasion.
The shelling of Kharkiv has destroyed a school and, according to its mayor, killed at least 11 civilians.
The front pages of British newspapers carried photographs of two young girls killed by Russian attacks in Ukraine and the words of a doctor as he tried to save one of them: “Show this to Putin.”
Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, a former war crimes prosecutor, said Britain and its allies would wait as long as it takes to bring any violators to heel, pointing to the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia.
“That’s why we’re making it clear both to Putin but also to commanders in Moscow, on the ground in Ukraine, that they will be held accountable for any violations of the laws of war,” he told Sky News.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague said Monday it was investigating after finding a “reasonable basis” to suspect alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine since Russia seized the Crimea peninsula in 2014.
For Putin, Russian generals and soldiers, “there’s a very real risk that they’ll end up in the dock of a court in The Hague”, Raab added on BBC television.
“If and when the ICC decides to take action, I’m sure the UK and allies will want to support them practically, logistically.”
Amnesty International said Russian cluster bombs hit a preschool in northeastern Ukraine last Friday that was being used to shelter civilians, killing three people including a child.
Amnesty chief Agnes Callamard said the “stomach-turning” attack in the town of Okhtyrka “should be investigated as a war crime”.
The key south eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol on the Azov Sea has been left without electricity following attacks from advancing Russian forces, the head of the region Pavlo Kyrylenko said Tuesday.
“Mariupol and Volnovakha are ours!” Kyrylenko wrote on Facebook. “The two cities are under pressure from the enemy but they are holding on. In Mariupol, electricity lines have been cut and the city is without power.”
Both cities lie between territory held by Russian-backed separatists and the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, and Russian forces have been working to join the two regions.
Mariupol, an important port city of between 400,000-500,000 people has been under attack since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine last week. Volnovakha has a population of around 20,000.
Mariupol was briefly occupied by pro-Moscow separatists when fighting broke out with the Ukrainian army in 2014, following historic street demonstrations that ousted a pro-Kremlin president.
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