Ron DePasquale, NYTimes

NEW YORK
EnergiesNet.com 04 04 2022

Moscow is facing calls for international investigations and harsher sanctions — even a ban on its gas industry — because of growing evidence that Russian forces committed atrocities against civilians in Ukraine.

Cutting off the supply of Russian gas would be a remarkable step for the European Union, which relies heavily on Russian fuel and has so far rebuffed mounting calls, including from President Biden, to impose energy-related penalties against them.

But momentum could be building for such a move as world leaders express horror at images that appeared to show dead civilians, some with their hands bound behind their backs, strewn in the streets of Bucha, a town near Kyiv, after Russia withdrew troops. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, each described Russia’s actions as genocide.

“The Russian authorities will have to answer for these crimes,” France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said Sunday. António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, called for an independent investigation that leads to “effective accountability.” Ukraine wants an investigation by the International Criminal Court.

In what would mark a significant shift in her country’s position, Germany’s defense minister, Christine Lambrecht, said that because of what happened in Bucha, the bloc should consider banning Russian gas imports. Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, said on Twitter that more sanctions against Russia “are on their way.”

In Bucha, residents were still finding bodies in yards and roadways days after Russian troops withdrew. At a mass grave — about a dozen yards long and two yards wide — a pile of excavated dirt lay nearby to pile onto bodies. In one corner, two pairs of shoes and an arm protruded from a thin layer of dirt, and in another, a hand stuck out.

Even as Moscow’s troops pulled away from Kyiv, Russia continued to batter Ukraine’s southern coastline with airstrikes on infrastructure Sunday. It has described the withdrawal as a tactical move to regroup its forces for a major push in the Donbas region in the east and south.

In other major developments:

• The Black Sea port cities of Odesa and Mykolaiv were struck by missiles on Sunday. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said on Sunday that intelligence showed Russian naval forces have maintained a blockade of the Ukrainian coast in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, which is “preventing Ukrainian resupply by sea.”
  “
• Mr. Zelensky addressed the Grammy Awards in a prerecorded video, noting that his country’s musicians “wear body armor instead of tuxedos.”

-Andrew E. Kramer, Carlotta Gall and Natalie Kitroeff contributed.

nytimes.com 04 04 2022