Ukraine’s Zelenskyy set to address U.N. Security Council on Russia’s war

The U.K., which holds the council presidency this month, announced that Zelenskyy would speak at the open meeting called for Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address the U.N. Security Council for the first time Tuesday at a meeting that is certain to focus on what appear to be widespread deliberate killings of civilians by Russian troops.

The dead were discovered after the withdrawal of Russian forces from a town on the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv, and have sparked global outrage and vehement denials from the Russian government that it was responsible.

The United Kingdom, which holds the council presidency this month, announced late Monday that Zelenskyy would speak at the open meeting called for Tuesday to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy is to address the U.N.’s most powerful body virtually after it receives briefings from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, his political chief Rosemary DiCarlo, and U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, who is trying to arrange an immediate humanitarian cease-fire and met with senior Russian officials in Moscow on Monday and will shortly be heading to Ukraine.

Videos and photos of streets in the town of Bucha strewn with corpses of what appeared to be civilians, some with their hands tied behind their back, have led to global revulsion, calls for tougher sanctions on Russia and its suspension from the U.N.’s premiere human rights body, the Human Rights Council.

According to Ukraine’s prosecutor-general, Iryna Venediktova, the bodies of 410 civilians have been removed from Bucha and other Kyiv-area towns that were recently retaken from Russian troops.

Associated Press journalists have reported seeing dozens of bodies in various spots around Bucha, northwest of the capital. The bodies included a group of nine in civilian clothes who appeared to have been shot at close range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs. A bag of spilled groceries was near one of the dead.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, accused Ukraine and the West on Monday of “a false flag attempt” to blame Russian troops for atrocities in Bucha that he charged were committed by Ukrainian nationalists. He called video of bodies lying in the streets “a crude forgery,” and insisted that during the time that Bucha was under Russian control, “not a single local person has suffered from any violent action.”